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TLS1 Course Book Analyses [CBA-L] and [CBA-R]

Lukas Sturm

PHDL

ASB3EN2TLP: PS Teaching Language Skills 1

HS-Prof. Mag. Dr. Gudrun Keplinger

January 2024
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Part 1: Course Book Analysis – Listening [CBA-L]

The focus of this cCourse bBook aAnalysis is on listening activities featured in theUnits 1
(Born-Lechleitner et al., 2019b)
to -4 in the coursebook way2go! 7 Coursebook . The main

goals are to find out which receptive goals the listening tasks aim at, and what different

strategies are suitable for learners to achieve these goals. Furthermore, pre-listening, while-

listening, and post-listening activities are investigated and their objectives are explained. In

addition, a connection to the illustrative descriptor scales in the Common European

Framework of References for Languages (CEFR) is established. The conclusion sums up the

main findings in a compact format.

The Course Book

The following analysis uses the coursebook way2go! 7 Coursebook, which was authored

by Ilse Born-Lechleitner, Sally Brunner, Anna Harkamp, Eva Holleis, and Andreas Kaplan, and

published in 2019 by Österreichischer Bundesverlag Schulbuch GmbH & Co. KG.

Analysis

This section consists of four research questions, which are used to systematically analyse

the listening tasks that can be found in the Units 1 to -4 in the way2go! 7 cCoursebook. The

focus is on the topics ‘leisure time’, ‘family’, ‘living’, and ‘travelling and transport’.
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What are the receptive goals the listening activities aim at?

According to the CEFR, listening activities can either target listening for gist, specific
(Council of Europe, 2020)
information, or understanding implications .

Unit 1 focuses on the topic ‘leisure time’. Task 6 (Born-Lechleitner et al., 2019b) asks

students to listen for specific information about balancing school and leisure, and then answer

multiple-choice questions. Task 15 (p. 13) also requires them to listen for detailed information,

but this time by answering open questions about a sports video. In contrast, task 24 (p. 17)

presents solutions to a sports quiz and therefore does aim at listening for specific facts.

Unit 2 contains activities about the topic ‘family’. Task 4 (p. 25) prioritizes listening for

specific information again, as students have to match names and statements about family

members they hear in an audio. Listening for specific details is also asked for in task 12b (p. 28).

Learners should answer six questions about a short speech concerning family structures. Task

28 (p. 33), on the other hand, requires implied listening, as students should identify different

aspects (register used, place of talk, relationship between people talking, reason for talk) of

short conversations.

‘Living’ is the theme of Unit 3. Listening for detail is the assignment in task 5a (p. 43), as

learners have to take notes on how people live after having finished school. Task 26 (p. 50) is an

audio-visual task, in which students watch and listen to a news report about London for gist and

should write a short summary afterwards. Task 32 (p. 53) is split into two parts. First, students

are asked to watch a short documentary about life in an African country without sound and
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describe what they see. This falls in the category of implied listening. Then, students watch the

video again (this time with sound) and should listen for specific information by answering

questions about housing in this country.

Unit 4 thematizes ‘travelling and transport’. Task 8 (p. 58) involves listening for specific

information about a world traveller, as sentence beginnings and ends should be matched. In

task 24 (p. 64), listening for detail and answering questions about public transport are the goals

the activity aims at. Contrary to these activities, task 31a (p. 66) focuses on listening for gist by

asking students to summarise information from a video about modes of transportation.

What different strategies do the learners use to achieve these goals?

Listening strategies can be categorized into cognitive, metacognitive and socioaffective

(Lynch, 2009)
strategies .

In Task 6 (Born-Lechleitner et al., 2019b) , students have to draw deductions from the

interview they hear and use the information to answer multiple-choice questions. Fixation can

be used in task 15 (p. 13), as students are asked to find out which person in the video talks

about certain statements listed below. Again, task 24 (p. 17) suggests fixation as a strategy.

Learners have to find out the solutions to a quiz they have done before.

Deduction is an appropriate strategy in task 4 (p. 25). Short speeches have to be

matched with statements they contain. Task 12 (p. 28) is fitting for contextualization, because

students should answer questions about a daily-life topic and share their own opinion and
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thoughts afterwards. The use of deduction as a strategy is suitable for task 28 (p. 33), as the

learners should deduce from an audio what register people use, where the conversation takes

place, etc.

In task 5 (p. 43), students have to give an overview of short interviews; therefore,

summarization is a useful strategy. Similarly, summarization is suitable for task 26 (p. 50). Again,

a short summary of a report has to be produced. Task 32 (p. 53) is suitable for imagery as well

as prediction. Students have to describe what they see in a video they listen to without sound

and predict what the content might be about.

The strategic use of elaboration in task 8 (p. 58) enables the learners to match the

sentence beginnings and endings which contain specific information about an interview. In task

24 (p. 64), fixation can be used by students to answer specific questions about a radio feature.

Task 31a (p. 66) suits a summarization strategy, as a video has to be condensed to five

sentences.

What are the objectives of the pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening activities in

these units?

In general, a listening lesson can be divided into three phases, namely pre-listening,
(Vandergrift & Goh, 2012)
while-listening and post-listening . All of these phases can include

activities that rely on the bottom-up and/or top-down processing models. Grimm et al (2015, p.
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123) state that these processes interact with each other and Grabe and Stoller (2013, pp. 25f)

advise to combine them to achieve better comprehension.

Task 7 (Born-Lechleitner et al., 2019b) is designed as a post-listening activity. It

contains topic-related vocabulary and aims at acquiring new words and phrases, whereas task 8

(p. 10) helps learners finding strategies to balance school and free time that work for them

personally.

Pre-listening task 14 (p. 13) tries to alter the students’ prior view on sports and gender, and

draw a comparison to societal opinions. Activity 16 (p. 13) is suitable post-listening and

encourages learners to state their own opinion on a controversial topic.

Task 3 (p. 25) is a classic pre-listening activity that serves as an introduction into the

topic family and asks students to describe their own family life. Post-listening, task 5 (p. 25)

promotes oral production, as the learners should produce a short statement similar to the ones

they heard in the audio before. The use of new topic-specific vocabulary is another aim of this

task. Task 12a (p. 28) serves as a pre-listening activity and aims to activate and enhance the

learners’ vocabulary knowledge by asking them to match expressions with their explanations.

Post-listening activity 13 (p. 28) encourages the learners to establish an own opinion on family

structures using information acquired from task 12b (p. 28). Another classic pre-listening topic

introduction is task 27 (p. 32). It provides the students with an overview of appropriate register

in various situations. Following up, task 29 (p. 33) is conducted post-listening and asks students

to share their own experience with register use.

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Task 4 (p. 43) suits pre-listening, as it focuses on expanding the students’ vocabulary

range by listing words from the topic ‘home’, which they should familiarise themselves with.

Task 25 (p. 50) works also well as a pre-listening activity. By discussing pictures that contain

people from different age groups, the learners should raise their awareness for different needs

concerning living. Giving background information is the main aim of task 31 (p. 53). First,

students should look up Mozambique on a map and then read a short description of the

country so they get a gist what life looks like there.

Task 6 and 7 (p. 58) are both pre-listening activities and give background information on

an English world traveller as well as encourage the students to make predictions about this

person. Suitable post-listening, task 9 (p. 59) asks the learners to evaluate their own

performance in the prior activity. Evaluation is the aim in task 25 (p. 64) again. This time, the

learners have to rank suggestions they hear and give reasons for their ranking. Tasks 29 and 30

(p. 66) act as pre-listening activities, aiming at expanding the students’ vocabulary range and

activating prior knowledge on the topic ‘transportation’. Post-listening task 31b (p. 66) asks for

learners’ assumptions about a place they heard about and saw before in a video.

What descriptor(s) from the illustrative descriptor scales provided in the CEFR do the activities

target?

The CEFR (Council of Europe, 2020) provides can-do descriptors that should facilitate

the classification of competences into proficiency levels (A1-C2). The following descriptors are

slightly modified to take into accountconsider the content of the respective tasks.
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The listening tasks in Unit 1 can be classified as level B2 and target the descriptor, “I can

understand most broadcast material on the topic of sport and leisure delivered in the standard
(Council of Europe, 2020)
form of the language”

Unit 2 features listening tasks that can be connected to the descriptor “I can follow

extended discourse and complex lines of argument on the topic of communication and social

networks, provided the direction of the talk is signposted by explicit markers” (B2). (ibid., p. 48)

As Unit 1, Unit 3 includes listening tasks closely tied to the descriptor “I can understand

most broadcast material on the topic of domestic environment delivered in the standard form of

the language” (B2) (ibid., p. 52).

Similar to Units 1 and 3, Unit 4’s listening tasks match the descriptor “I can understand

most broadcast material on the topic of transport and tourism delivered in the standard form of

the language” (B2) (ibid., p. 52)

How can one listening Spiced-up activity be ‘spiced up’?

Task 5a (Born-Lechleitner et al., 2019b) offers the great opportunity to asks students to

i‘interview’ their (grand)parents, other relatives or other generally people older than

themselves about how they lived after having finished school. This can give agreatn insight into

how how different generations and how they used to live after school. As there are probably
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students in the class , whose (grand)parents arelived(d) fromin different countries in the class, a

comparison between Austria and other countries can also be drawn.

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Conclusion
In conclusion, Units 1 to -4 in the coursebook way2go! 7 Coursebook
(Born-Lechleitner et al., 2019b)
strongly emphasize tasks which ask learners to listen for specific information and

details. Moreover, most listening activities are suitable for cognitive listening strategies such as

summarization, deduction, or fixation. Pre- and post-listening tasks often aim at expanding the

students’ vocabulary range as well as introducing a new topic. Also notable, learners are

regularly asked to make assumptions and connect the acquired knowledge to real-life

situations. All listening tasks are suitable for level B2, according to the CEFR.
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Declaration of AI Use – CBA-L

(Please mark with a cross!)

I acknowledge the use of the following AI tools/digital translation tools to write my paper:
Yes No
BING X
ChatGPT X
ChatPDF X
DeepL X
DeepLWrite X
Google Bard X
Perplexity X
Other (Please list the tools here): thesaurus.com, Cambridge Dictionary

I acknowledge the use of AI tools/digital translation tools to …

Yes No
… gather ideas for writing this paper X
… generate an outline of my paper X
… better understand the topic as I conducted research for this paper X
… find sources X
… structure my text X
… proofread my text X
… answer the questions given X
… translate from L1 to English X
… translate from English to L1 X
… improve the language quality of my paper X
… (Please list other purposes here):

When I used AI tools, I entered the following prompts:

(Please list at least five prompts which were useful here.)
Prompt 1 “xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”
Prompt 2
Prompt 3
Prompt 4
Prompt 5

If you enter multiple prompts (e.g. one for an explanation, one for examples, one for feedback) you need to
provide all the prompts and describe how you used or modified the output in your assessment.
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Part 2: Course Book Analysis: Reading [CBA-R]

This course book analysis deals with reading activities represented in the units 1 and 2 in
(Born-Lechleitner et al., 2019a)
the way2go! 8 coursebook . First, a thesis statement will be

made. This statement is followed by an investigation of the general approach to practising

reading in these units as well as an analysis of Freeman’s taxonomy of comprehension

questions. A short conclusion gives an overview on the main findings.

The Course Book

The following analysis uses the coursebook way2go! 8 Coursebook, which was authored

by Ilse Born-Lechleitner, Sally Brunner, Anna Harkamp, Eva Holleis, and Andreas Kaplan, and

published in 2019 by Österreichischer Bundesverlag Schulbuch GmbH & Co. KG.

Introduction

The upcoming section first analyses the general approach to reading in the units 1 and 2

in the coursebook and compares it to the concepts of other skills (speaking, listening, writing)

featured in the respective units. Then, the focus is on Freeman’s taxonomy of comprehension

questions, especially on which categories and question types are represented in the book.

Additional questions for the least represented category will also be included. A conclusion sums

up the main findings.

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General approach to practising reading in units 1 & 2 (in relation to other skills)

Unit 1 is characterized by an approach that includes various ideas to practise reading,

Grabe and Stoller
including a few of ’s purposes for reading’ (2013, pp. 5-10) as well as some of

the ‘curricular principles for reading instruction’ such as 2) varied reading resources or 5)

connection to students’ background knowledge (ibid., p. 132). The book provides not only tasks

which ask students to answer questions about the content or get the main idea of texts (tasks

4, 14, 28), but also assignments that encourage the learners to react to and assess certain

situations stated in a text (tasks 19, 24).

Comparably, speaking is practised through activities which ask students to exchange

their own opinions, especially with a partner or in small groups (e.g. tasks 1, 10, 22, 23, 27).

Listening is targeted by one task which asks learners to match speakers and statements

(task 11) and one about taking notes on questions (task 21).

Writing tasks are directed towards expressing one’s own opinion and using newly

acquired vocabulary, mostly in the form of statements (tasks 5, 12, 17, 20, 26, 31).

In unit 2, reading is again practised through a combination of content-related tasks (task

26: completing statements about a text) and activities such as discussing own answers or given

statements (tasks 1, 17), thereby targeting Freeman’s ‘affect questions’ category.

As in unit 1, speaking tasks focus on discussions (e.g. tasks 5, 11, 17, 20). Task 31 (p. 33)

is more analytically, as it asks students to look at a chart and then give a talk about

‘globalisation’.
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Listening only plays a small role in this unit. In task 9, learners should complete sentence

beginnings with information they hear in an audio sequence. Task 21 (p. 29) is also content-

related and asks students to pick a statement from a list that best sums up a video they have

seen before.

Writing activities focus, exactly as in unit 1, on discussing familiar topics and then

producing statements including one’s own point of view (e.g. tasks 12, 15, 19). Task 19 (p. 28)

also encourages learners to use topic-related phrases included in other tasks in this unit.

Analysis of Freeman’s taxonomy of comprehension questions

The following section analyses Freeman’s taxonomy of comprehension questions, which

consists of the three categories ‘content questions’, ‘language questions’, and ‘affect

questions’. Within these categories, there are different comprehension question types that deal
(Freeman, 2014)
with specific aspects of the respective category .

What categories of comprehension questions do these two units include?

Unit 1 includes several content (tasks 4, 14, 28) and affect (tasks 19, 24) questions,

whereas language questions cannot be found.

Similarly, the emphasis in unit 2 is placed on content (task 26) and affect (tasks 1, 17)

questions. Language questions are again not present here.

For each of these categories, what comprehension question types do these two units provide?
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For the category ‘content questions’, two of the three question types, namely

‘inferential comprehension’ (unit 1: tasks 4, 28) and ‘textually implicit’ (1: 14, 28 | 2: 26) are

provided. ‘Textually explicit’ question types are not featured at all.

Questions from the ‘language questions’ category such as ‘reorganization’, ‘lexical’ or

‘form’ neither exist in unit 1 nor in unit 2.

The ‘affect questions’ category can be found in both units and is represented by the

question types ‘personal response’ (1: 19) and ‘evaluation’ (1: 24 | 2: 1, 17).

Additional questions for least represented category in units 1 & 2

The category ‘language questions’ is not represented at all in units 1 and 2. However,

there are some tasks where questions of this category can be added.

Task 4 (p. 9) could be enhanced by asking students to match highlighted words and

phrases from the text with provided definitions. This is especially applicable to this task,

because a lot of difficult vocabulary is included in the text.

Task 14 (p. 12) is also suitable for a question of the ‘language’ category. The text could

be divided into paragraphs and short summaries for each section could be provided. The

learners could then be asked to put the summaries in chronological order.

In task 17 (p. 28), students could transfer important content from the statements into a

mind map about ‘globalisation’. This requires them to divide the content into different sub-

sections and arrange it clearly and meaningfully.

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Conclusion
In summary, reading in units 1 and 2 in the way2go! 8 coursebook is approached

through variegated tasks that mostly focus on the content of given texts and their evaluation.

Language aspects are totally neglected, being not present at all in the investigated listening

tasks.

In relation, other skills such as speaking, listening and writing are not approached as

differentiated as reading. Listening plays just a small role and is only represented by three tasks

in total. Writing and speaking tasks focus on a simpler approach, concentrating on expressing

one’s own opinion.

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ReferencesADDIN CitaviBibliography

Born-Lechleitner, I., Brunner, S., Harkamp, A., Holleis, E., & Kaplan, A. (2019a). Way2go! (1.

Auflage). öbv. https://permalink.obvsg.at/AC16084023

Born-Lechleitner, I., Brunner, S., Harkamp, A., Holleis, E., & Kaplan, A. (2019b). Way2go! (1.

Auflage). öbv. https://permalink.obvsg.at/AC15513895

Council of Europe. (2020). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning,

teaching, assessment ; companion volume. Council of Europe Publishing.

Freeman, D. (2014). Reading Comprehension Questions: The Distribution of Different Types in

Global EFL Textbooks. In N. Harwood (Ed.), English Language Teaching Textbooks

(pp. 72–110). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137276285_3

Grabe, W. P., & Stoller, F. L. (2013). Teaching and Researching: Reading. Routledge.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315833743

Lynch, T. (2009). Teaching second language listening (1. Aufl.). Oxford handbooks for language

teachers. Oxford Univ. Press.

Vandergrift, L., & Goh, C. C. M. (2012). Teaching and learning second language listening:

Metacognition in action. ESL & applied linguistics professional series. Routledge.

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Declaration of AI Use – CBA-R

(Please mark with a cross!)

I acknowledge the use of the following AI tools/digital translation tools to write my paper:
Yes No
BING X
ChatGPT X
ChatPDF X
DeepL X
DeepLWrite X
Google Bard X
Perplexity X
Other (Please list the tools here): thesaurus.com, Cambridge Dictionary

I acknowledge the use of AI tools/ digital translation tools to …

Yes No
… gather ideas for writing this paper X
… generate an outline of my paper X
… better understand the topic as I conducted research for this paper X
… find sources X
… structure my text X
… proofread my text X
… answer the questions given X
… translate from L1 to English X
… translate from English to L1 X
… improve the language quality of my paper X
…(Please list other purposes here):

When I used AI tools, I entered the following prompts:

(Please list at least five prompts which were useful here.)
Prompt 1 “xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”
Prompt 2
Prompt 3
Prompt 4
Prompt 5

If you enter multiple prompts (e.g. one for an explanation, one for examples, one for feedback) you need to
provide all the prompts and describe how you used or modified the output in your assessment.