What is in a textbook? Investigating the language and literacy learning principles of the ‘Gateway...

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What is in a textbook? Investigatingthe language and literacy learningprinciples of the ‘Gateway to English’textbook seriesKwasi Opoku-Amankwa a , Aba Brew-Hammond a & Francis ElsbendKofigah ba Department of Publishing Studies, College of Art and SocialSciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology,Kumasi, Ghanab Department of English, College of Art and Social Sciences,Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi,Ghana

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What is in a textbook? Investigating the language and literacylearning principles of the ‘Gateway to English’ textbook series

Kwasi Opoku-Amankwaa*, Aba Brew-Hammonda and Francis Elsbend Kofigahb

aDepartment of Publishing Studies, College of Art and Social Sciences, KwameNkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; bDepartment ofEnglish, College of Art and Social Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Scienceand Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

This paper investigates three English textbooks for primary classes 4, 5and 6 in Ghana from the ‘Gateway to English for Primary Schools’ ser-ies, and their complementary teachers’ guides, in order to determine theassumptions about teaching and learning which the books embody. Thepaper pays particular attention to the approach to language and literacylearning which underpins these materials. Littlejohn’s three-level frame-work was used to analyse the course materials. The first stage involvedthe description of the textbooks, the accompanying teachers’ guide andthe English syllabus as well as the textbook selection and evaluation cri-teria, as spelt out in the ‘Textbook Development and Distribution forBasic Schools in Ghana Policy’. The second level involved the analysisof tasks and activities from a sociocritical perspective. The third stagedraws on the analyses of the first and second stages to determine thelanguage and literacy principles underpinning the textbooks and relatedmaterials. Findings indicate the Gateway to English for Primary Schoolsseries endorses the ‘technical skills’ approach to language and literacydevelopment. Implications of the findings for language and literacydevelopment in multilingual Ghanaian classrooms and for textbooks andmaterials development in book famine communities such as Ghana arediscussed.

Keywords: language development; sociocritical literacy; instructionalmaterials; textbook studies; authenticity

Introduction

In planning and developing language textbooks and other instructional mate-rials for learning, publishers, authors, and commissioning editors tend togive most attention to factors such as learners’ needs, contextual variables,such as classroom conditions and availability of teaching resources (Rich-ards 2006), and market factors (Basturkman 1999). Richards (2006) notes,

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Pedagogy, Culture & SocietyAquatic InsectsVol. 19, No. 2, July 2011, 291–310

ISSN 1468-1366 print/ISSN 1747-5104 online� 2011 Pedagogy, Culture & SocietyDOI: 10.1080/14681366.2011.582264http://www.informaworld.com

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however, that often, little or no explicit attention is paid to the theories oflanguage and literacy learning underlying the material development. Theo-retical considerations are, however, of fundamental importance in materials’development as they determine how the syllabus is implemented, forinstance, in the form of exercises, tasks, activities and learning experiences(Littlejohn 1998).

In this paper we investigate three English textbooks for upper primaryclasses 4, 5 and 6 in Ghana from the ‘Gateway to English for PrimarySchools’ series, and their complementary teachers’ guides,1 in order to deter-mine the assumptions about teaching and learning which the books embody(Littlejohn 1998; Richards 1993). Particular attention is paid to the approachto language and literacy learning which underpins these materials.

We discuss the findings from a sociocritical perspective rather than froman autonomous perspective (Street 1995, 2003, 2005), which suggests thatintroducing literacy to poor, ‘illiterate’ people, etc. will have the effect ofenhancing their cognitive skills, improving their economic prospects, makingthem better citizens, regardless of the social and economic conditions thataccounted for their ‘illiteracy’ in the first place. ‘[We] posit instead that liter-acy is a social practice, not simply a technical and neutral skill; that it isalways embedded in socially constructed epistemological principles’ (Street2003, 77).

Textbooks and sociocritical practice

The sociocritical approach to language and literacy learning derives fromthe tenets of sociocultural and critical theories, and in this section we brieflydiscuss aspects of the two approaches relevant to this study. Writers whoadvocate sociocultural and communicative language teaching are critical oflanguage textbooks in which dialogues are unnatural and do not adequatelyprepare students for the pronunciation (Allwright 1981; Morrow and Schoc-ker 1987), language structures, grammar, idioms, vocabulary and conversa-tional rules, routines and strategies that they will need to use in the realworld (Basturkman 1999); they are also dismissive of the failure of text-books to engender teacher–pupil interaction, a feature which has been identi-fied as an important determinant of achievement in classrooms whichotherwise have equal access to curriculum materials (Ackers and Hardman2001). Proponents of sociocultural classroom language models (Au 1998;Baker 1996; Barratt-Pugh 2000; Cummins 1986; Edwards 1997; Walsh2006; Wells 1999) argue that it is crucial to introduce learners to the funda-mental characteristics of authentic real-life examples of both spoken andwritten discourse.

Textbooks have primarily been vehicles for transmitting knowledge andtherefore focused on the provision of information and congruent activities(Walker and Horsley 2003). However, as artefacts for learning, and language

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and literacy development (Apple 1986, 1992; de Castell, Luke, and Luke1989; Walker and Horsley 2003), textbooks should not simply aim atproviding a body of knowledge. Rather, they should stimulate the pupils’interest, develop creativity and interactive learning, and create culturalawareness (Fenner and Newby 2000), linking school knowledge to societyand integrating different disciplines (Hummel 1988), by providing authenticmaterials and tasks.

Textbooks, in effect, should help to construct knowledge by using taskswith different possible solutions, open-ended assignments and providinglearning situations in which learners have a say. Further, the textbook shouldaim to go beyond school by giving attention to current developments insociety including the use of media (newspaper, television, radio), and by set-ting assignments addressing societal problems. In the terminology of Cum-mins (1996, 2000), the texts should be ‘context embedded’. And finally thetextbook should encourage students to co-operate and communicate by hav-ing them work together in groups on collective tasks, with the teacher actingas a facilitator and students playing an important role in assessing the resultsof collective tasks (Roelofs and Terwel 1999).

Critical curriculum researchers, on the other hand, tend to regard text-books as ideological message systems for transmitting dominant values andbeliefs of society (Apple 1992; Luke 1988). Luke (1988) suggests that inany given era of the history of education, the selection of knowledge,competences and practices for transmission in school curricula is an ideolog-ical process, serving the interest of particular classes. According to Apple(2006), the dominant groups in economic, political and cultural spheresattempt to control what counts as legitimate knowledge in the school fortheir own interest.

Critical scholars are interested in finding out the extent to which a textmaterial is able to empower and equip learners with the tools of language toanalyse, appraise, contest and effectively participate in the learning process(Comber 2003). In the view of Comber (2003, 356), critical language andliteracy development should involve three key pedagogical moves: ‘recog-nise and mobilize learners’ analytical resources, examine existing criticaltexts, and offer children new discursive resources’. Advocates of critical lan-guage and literacy learning propose educational approaches which empowerlearners, as empowered students are confident in their own cultural identity,as well as knowledgeable of school structures and interactional patterns, andso can participate successfully in school learning activities (Au 1998).

Critical curriculum researchers therefore suggest analyses which situatethe texts in the immediate and larger political context of their use by exam-ining the minute characteristics of authors’ linguistic choices; the socialcontext in which the discourses in the book unfolded; and, the larger politi-cal and ideological assumptions that underpin the tasks and activities in the

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pupils’ book, and the instructional approaches suggested in the teacher’sguide.

The study and methodology

The textbook study was based on qualitative content analysis (Berg 2004),which analysed not only the manifest content but also the latent content –sinking deep into the background and using additional information to pro-vide a holistic interpretation of the data. Analysis started with readingthrough the three textbooks and accompanying teachers’ guides, the syllabusfor English and Ghana’s textbooks policy in order to identify sentences,phrases, concepts, statements, etc., with identical or similar meaning whichanswered the questions:

What language and literacy learning principles underpin the Gateway toEnglish textbook?What are the pedagogical intentions of the Gateway textbook?What opportunities does the Gateway textbook offer for sociocritical lan-guage and literacy development?

The qualitative content analysis undertaken in this study also involved criti-cal discourse analysis by reading through the textbooks, teachers’ guides,the syllabuses and textbook policy to identify both the visible and unseenfactors in the materials which perpetuate inequality among the pupils; tohave a more thorough understanding of how as artefact for cultural preserva-tion (Apple 1979; Young 1992) the textbooks and related materials createand recreate forms of cultural consciousness that enable social control to bemaintained without the necessity for dominant groups to resort to overtmechanisms of domination (Cushman 1999).

Framework for analysis of texts materials

To begin the analysis, we needed a framework to guide our investigation.We found that there are many different textbook evaluation and analysischecklists (Cunningsworth 1984, 1995; Daoud and Celce-Murcia 1979; Pea-cock 1995; Richards 2007; Sheldon 1988; Skiero 1991) etc., but the frame-work that most appropriately fitted the examination we were planning toundertake was one developed by Littlejohn (1998). We adapted Littlejohn’s(1998) three-level framework for our study because his framework specifi-cally recommends the need to analyse the theory(ies) underpinning text-books, which is in line with one of our key questions: What language andliteracy learning principles underpin the Gateway to English textbook?

The coding categories were, however, drawn from literature on the socio-critical approach to language and literacy development. The first level of the


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analysis involved the description of: (1) the pupils’ textbook in terms ofdesign and layout – colour, size, shape, number of pages, divisions andsubdivisions; number/type of tasks, exercises, issues and topics discussedetc.; and (2) the teacher’s guide in terms of design and layout – number ofpages, colour, shape, size, general/specific instructions on use of textbooks,explanation of exercises/tasks; level of conformity with the syllabus and thetextbook policy. The analysis at this level also looked at the relationbetween the pupils’ book and the other materials; the extent to which thetextbook is packaged to meet the requirements of the syllabus and the text-book policy and the stated objectives of the overall curriculum.

The second level involved the analysis of tasks and activities to find outthe extent to which the tasks conform to the tenets of the sociocriticallanguage and literacy approach. The major coding categories for the analysisinvolved: reading comprehension and writing development, collaborativelearning, linking school to the real world which also included the use ofauthentic texts and tasks, and issues of power and control both manifest andlatent in the textbooks and related materials.

In the third stage we drew on the analysis of the first and second stagesand relevant literature to try to determine the language and literacy princi-ples underpinning the textbook and related materials and also their role infacilitating language and literacy teaching and learning. The section gener-ally examined sentences, statements, words, suggestions and recommenda-tions in the teachers’ guides, syllabus, textbooks policy and otherdocuments, and also the pupils’ book to find out the extent to which theyrelate to the tenets of sociocritical practice. We also analysed the instruc-tional techniques suggested in the teachers’ guides. Elements in this includepromoting co-operative learning, whole-class instruction, group instruction,and activities providing for student choices, modelling activities, individua-lised instruction etc.

In the proceeding sections we discuss the findings and their implicationsfor language and literacy development in multilingual Ghanaian classroomsand for development of textbooks and materials in book famine communi-ties such as Ghana.

The Gateway to English primary textbooks and related materials

The Gateway to English pupils’ textbooks and their teachers’ guides havebeen developed to meet the exact requirements of the national curriculumobjectives for English-language teaching and learning, as spelt out in thesyllabus and the ‘Textbook Development and Distribution for Basic SchoolsPolicy’. For a textbook (plus required accompanying teacher’s guide andany other associated materials) to be accepted for use in schools in Ghana,it must be evaluated and selected by an Evaluation Coordinating Committee(ECC) in strict accordance with the specified procedures, methodology,


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criteria and marking scheme. Having been accepted for use in schools, it isassumed that the Gateway to English for Primary Schools series conformsto the requirements and objectives of the curriculum and syllabus and meetsthe minimum specified pedagogic content, presentational and technical stan-dards. It has also achieved a ranking place for the relevant subject, gradelevels and (languages of instruction) in competition with all other textbookssubmitted by publishers for evaluation.

The Gateway to English for Primary Schools series comprises Primary 1to Primary 6 Pupils’ Textbooks, each with a Teacher’s Guide. The series ispublished by Pearson Longman and its local Ghanaian associate Sedco Pub-lishers. The books are written by four Ghanaian authors: Akosua Anyidoho,Thomas Ntumy, Innocent Sraha and Felicia Appiah.

The Pupils’ Books 4, 5 and 6, which were the focus of this study, mea-sure 8.5 by 10.5 inches (215.90 by 266.70 mm). Book 4 is 140 pages long,Book 5 is 156 pages and Book 6 is 190 pages. The books are two colour;chapter heads, titles and sub-titles are in green with the main texts in black.The pictures and illustrations are also in black and white. They have beendivided into three major parts to cover each trimester in an academic year.The contents are grouped into three 10-unit clusters to correspond with thethree terms/trimester of the academic year. Each term’s activities includetwo revision modules each coming after three units of activities and a ‘TestYourself’ after unit 10. At the tail end are two complementary sections con-sisting of answers to tests and a mini dictionary which is a kind of glossary.

Each unit is made up of sections labelled A, B, C, D etc. programmed toconstitute the week’s activities. These activities are generally made up ofspeech, vocabulary development and expansion, comprehension, grammarand writing skill development.

The overall objectives, as specified in the syllabus, are: ‘to help pupils tolay effective foundations that will facilitate the use of English in learning athigher levels; to attain proficiency in listening, speaking, reading and writ-ing; and to be able to communicate effectively in English’ (English syllabus,p. ii).

The format and arrangement of materials in the pupils’ books conform tothat of the teachers’ guides. Each of the three teachers’ guides starts withsix pages of an extensive index on the topics to be treated under the units.This is in a tabular form of four columns indicating each unit’s theme, sylla-bus references and objectives, key structure/grammar and other skills. Ittherefore serves as a summary of the whole syllabus and what to expect ineach unit. The guide is divided into five parts with an extensive introductionof detailed exposition on how to use the guide, the objectives and methods.Part two consists of all the 30 units, where they are to be found as well astopics to be taught. Part three is on the teaching of poems, rhymes andsongs, with parts four and five focusing on games and grammar, respec-tively.


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Learner tasks and activities

In the first stage of this analysis we described content and appearance, whatLittlejohn (1998) describes as the ‘objective aspects’ of the Gateway text-books. In this second level, the analysis goes deeper to examine exactlywhat the authors intend teachers and pupils to do by specifically analysingthe various tasks. Littlejohn (1998, 198) defines a task as ‘any proposal con-tained within the materials for action to be undertaken by the learners,which has the direct aim of bringing about the learning of . . . language’.The Gateway textbooks set out an assortment of task categories that includereading, saying, writing, composing, vocabulary expansion, grammaticalskill expansion, etc. These are tasks to be performed individually, in groupsor as a class. Our interest was to find out the extent to which they espousethe ideals of the sociocritical model.

Reading comprehension tasks

This category looked out mainly for the types of reading comprehensionquestions posed; referential, or display; level of comprehension tested –knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, etc.The reading comprehension questions are mainly the kind which Walsh(2006) refers to as the closed variety and requires only short responses frompupils; they are display questions to which answers have already been pro-vided in the teacher’s guide. The textbooks contain scarcely any referentialquestions where the answer is not known in advance (Walsh 2006). Theyare mostly ‘wh’ questions that ask ‘what. . ., ‘which. . .?’ ‘who. . .? etc. Thenext set of questions which dominate are those with dichotomous yes/no ortrue/false answers.

At this level, the ordering of the questions closely parallels the narrativesequence of the passages. Thus, the answers to the first questions are usuallyfound at the beginning of the passages and the sequence follows till the endwhere the last questions are based on the concluding sections of the passageas these examples show.

In Unit 11 of the Pupil’s Book 4, the first sentence of the passage, ‘AVisit to Koko Beach’, reads: ‘The last Thursday of term was Children’sDay. . .’; the first question of the corresponding comprehension questions is:‘When was Children’s Day?’ The obvious answer is ‘the last Thursday ofterm’.

Book 5, like Book 4, continues with the pattern of the closed variety ofquestions, requiring only brief answers obviously implanted in the passage.This is adhered to so much that as far as Unit 24 with the title ‘Setting aGood Example’, the questions all follow the chronological sequence of thestory, with three of them providing multiple choice answers, not allowingpupils the opportunity to think outside the passage for answers as illustratedin this comprehension exercise:


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Question 5: ‘The boys thought the people in the office might be doing some-thing bad because. . .’ with possible answers:

(a) There was movement in the office.(b) They could hear voices.(c) The people were speaking in whispers.(d) The place was quiet.

The provision of possible answers does not ask much of the pupils’ referen-tial knowledge, since the answer is obvious in the sentence. ‘The voiceswere low, almost whispering’.

In Unit 19 of Pupil’s Book 6, the first paragraph of the passage ‘WhoStole this Watch?’ reads:

Ibrahim was wearing a new watch that his parents gave him for his birthday.It had many knobs on the sides and a bright silver strap. He went to meet hisfriends so that he could show them his watch. Tauti, Awia and Dauda werevery pleased to see him when he arrived. ‘Where is Musa?’ asked Ibrahim. . .

The first three questions on the passage read:

(1) Who gave Ibrahim a watch?(2) What did Ibrahim get for his birthday?(3) Name four of Ibrahim’s friends.

These questions, as in the other instances, follow the narrative sequence. Allof them derive from the first paragraph of the story quoted above and arepresented to match the sequence of the narration.

Writing development tasks

In this category we examined generally the opportunities offered pupils todo extended forms of writing – narratives, descriptive paragraphs, letters,notes, how-to’s, reports, etc. We also analysed the recommended pedagogi-cal approach to writing development – selecting topics, prewriting discus-sions, composing outlines, shared writing, drafting, revision, editing,scaffolding writing tasks, etc.

Writing tasks in the books come under two main headings: guided com-position and memory writing (dictation). Writing generally is viewed as aproduct rather than as a process as the following statement from a teacher’sguide indicates:

The compositions that the pupils are required to write often involve wordsand structures that they have learnt already. The composition exercises are


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aimed at helping pupils to concentrate on the writing and not to learn newwords. (Teacher’s Guide 4, 5)

In Books 4 and 5 especially, the exercises required children to write isolatedwords or unconnected sentences, rather than extended forms of discourse(DeGroff and Leu 1987). The following example on page 11 of Section F‘Guided Writing’ of Book 4 illustrates:

Use the words in the box to complete the passage.

grey tall old farmer rough thin

My grandfather is an _____ man. He is _____ and _____. He has_____ hair.His hands are _____ because he is a _____.

DeGroff and Leu (1987, 255) suggest that for a writing activity to becalled as such, it should consist of student-generated words, phrases, orsentences. Activities such as the above, requiring students to copy or selectfrom examples provided by the textbook or the teacher, therefore do notqualify as writing activities.

In some situations the exercises may be grammar based as these exam-ples from Book 5 show: in Unit 14, page 67 where pupils are to use Adjec-tives appropriately to complete sentences with blanks; or to use Adverbs asin Unit 15, page 68; or fill with the appropriate article as in Unit 4, page19: ‘Complete the story with a, an, some or the’.

The guided composition tasks in Book 6, on the other hand, focus moreon sentence formation and paragraphing than on words. It is a complexactivity that involves tasks that may not have been classified as writingtasks. These tasks include dictation/spelling, matching words with pictures/creating stories from pictures, composing directions, composing stories froma bare plan, punctuation tasks, crossword puzzles etc.

For example, in Unit 1 of the Pupils’ Book 6 the pupils are expected toperform a Guided Writing task. Here, four pictures serialise a well-knowntale. They are complemented with key words that derive from the theme ofthis well-known tale. In the first task, pupils are expected to match wordswith their related pictures. In task 2, the pupils look up the meanings of thewords from their mini-dictionaries. In the final task, the pupils write thestory each of the pictures tells. In all these, Teacher’s Guide 6 provides veryclear but concise guide notes which are suggestions that can be modified tosuit the particular needs of the pupils. In Unit 2 of Book 6, the main writingtask is poetry composition in the form of the poetic genre called ‘rap’. Natu-rally, rap is an exciting way of whipping up children’s’ interest in poetry.


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Based on the passage ‘What is Rap’, the pupils are guided to collaborate ingroups of four, to compose their own rap on selected themes.

Collaborative work

In this category we analysed activities and tasks that give the learners achance to interact with the teacher, and with each other; tasks that offeropportunity for dialogue, not the traditional type of exchange in which theteacher asks questions to which he expects a correct answer; tasks and activ-ities that support different learning abilities and interests – tasks/activitiesgraded to meet the varying needs of weak, average and above-averagepupils etc.

In a number of tasks in the pupils’ books and following the instructionsin the teachers’ guides, pupils are expected to work in groups on collabora-tive activities such as role plays. Most of these dialogues, role plays andconversations, however, are traditional classroom tasks in which the out-come is defined in advance. Further, they frequently require teacher assis-tance. There are many leading questions which limit opportunities for thedevelopment of higher-order/critical thinking (Fenner 2000). Take the exam-ple, in Section A of Unit 23: Eating Good Food (Pupils’ Book 4, 96), wherethe pupils are to practise the following conversation in pairs:

Sena: A pig and a goat are both dirty animals.

Afi: True, but a pig is dirtier than a goat.

Sena: Baba and Oko are both healthy.

Afi: True, but Baba is healthier than Oko.

The exercise is not meant to teach spoken language skills, nor to encourageactive participation and promote lively discussions in class. Rather, it ismeant to teach comparative adjectives, as indicated in the notes in the Tea-cher’s Guide (p. 114):

Ask a confident pupil to take the role of Sena while you (the teacher) take therole of Afi. Read the dialogue and the pupils follow in their books.

Ask pupils to read in pairs.

Check comprehension by asking questions:

Is a pig dirty? (Yes)

Is a goat dirty? (Yes)


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Which is dirtier, a pig or a goat? (A pig)

Draw pupils’ attention to the formation of comparative adjective. The adjec-tives in the dialogue all end in y. Point out that the y is replaced by –ier toform the comparatives. . .

The type of group and pair work the pupils do could be described as artifi-cial pair work, and the dialogue as programmed dialogue or what Fenner(2000) calls ‘monological dialogues’. The suggestion above that the teacherreads with a confident pupil defeats the guide’s objective of giving pupilsthe opportunity to practise English, it also exhibits lack of confidence in themajority of the pupils, and the notion rests on the deficit model.

In Pupils’ Book 5, Unit 18 under ‘The Dangers of Drugs’, pupils are tobe guided to work in groups to draw up a poster warning against the evilsof drugs. An otherwise fertile ground for collaborative work among pupilsis lessened by the instruction that the teacher should show pupils her posterfirst, thus, ‘influencing’ their originality (Teacher’s Guide 5, 96). In Unit 11of Pupils’ Book 6 the first reading activity is a collaborative task in whichpupils read and study a diagram. Each of the five rows of the paireddiagram contains a food group, examples of items contained in each groupand what the group contributes to the body. After reading and studying thisdiagram, pupils are asked simple questions based on the information in thediagram.

Linking school and real world

A key tenet of the sociocritical approach is that learning should be meaning-ful and link school knowledge to society. The textbook should facilitate thisthrough activities that draw on students’ prior knowledge and experiences(funds of knowledge) during the introduction of new content; it shouldchoose lesson topics from the students’ personal worlds, and offer learnersopportunities to talk and write about subject-related personal experiences byusing authentic texts and tasks. As Baker points out:

A reader’s current knowledge, family background, social and economic life-style and political orientation will all affect how a reader constructs meaningfrom the text. Different students of varying backgrounds will make differentinterpretations of the text. (1996, 299)

The analysis in this category therefore examined texts/activities that usepupil’s indigenous and local funds of knowledge, texts and tasks that raiseconsciousness of the learners’ own culture and foster awareness about thesub-cultures within the learners’ immediate environment as well as theglobal culture. We also analysed texts and tasks that replicate real-worldcontexts, functions and needs by means of activities such as role play and


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simulation. The category also includes different text types such as advertise-ments, genuine newspaper stories, personal letters, literary texts (poems, sto-ries), actual interview extracts, photographs that help to personalise adialogue and also show various cultural aspects such as clothes, hairstylesetc. and the physical milieu of the learners, use of pupils’ home/funds ofknowledge, etc.

The analysis of the Gateway to English textbooks revealed few genuineauthentic texts; the passages tend to be simulated texts. There is, however, aconscious attempt on the part of the authors to situate the development ofthe pupils’ language skills within the framework of Ghanaian/African cul-ture. The subject matter of the passages in the books replicates real-lifeexperiences with the Ghanaian/African context as the spring board. In Book4 passages for reading development touch on a range of issues includingfood and agriculture and healthy living; tourism; education; science; bankingand saving; and road safety. There are also passages on ageing, crime pre-vention, and social problems such as the phenomena of street children whichare relevant to the sociocultural needs of the country.

Book 5 has a variety of reading passages including poetry, folk tales, lawenforcement, marketing and festivals, and these provide authentic settingsfor the learners and help them to place literacy learning within their every-day existence. The stories, tasks and activities in Book 6 have the capacityto educate the pupils about pertinent issues of their cultural environment.‘Malaria’, ‘HIV and AIDS’, ‘Spiders’, Crocodiles’, ‘Protecting Forests’,Electricity, ‘Rap’, etc. are subjects pertinent to every Ghanaian child whoseeducation must be holistic rather than limited. In addition to these, the fea-tured texts expose the pupils to the various genres of literature – prose,poetry and drama – and actually encourage the pupil/learner to try his/herhands at composing.

Power and control

This category analysed texts to determine the relationships between schooland society; the analysis tried to ‘situate the texts in the immediate and lar-ger political context of their use’ and explored how the text materials perpet-uate or reduce inequality; we analysed opaque as well as transparentstructural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control bothmanifest and latent in the language of the textbooks; we examined the min-ute characteristics of authors’ linguistic choices; the social context in whichthe discourses in the book unfolded; the larger political and ideologicalassumptions that underpin the tasks and activities in the pupils’ book, andthe instructional approaches suggested in the teacher’s guide (Cushman1999; Gee 2005).

Our analysis showed that a number of texts, tasks and statements inBook 4 in particular tend to legitimise inequality among the pupils. The


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guided composition on ‘my grandfather’, discussed elsewhere in the paper,tends to portray farming in a negative way when it says: ‘His hands arerough because he is a farmer’, and raises concerns about the Ghana govern-ment’s claim of making education relevant to the needs of the country byintroducing agricultural studies as a core subject.

In the reading comprehension passage entitled ‘Children Should Go toSchool’, blame is placed on the children:

In many towns and cities there are young boys and girls who refuse [emphasisadded] to go to school . . . But instead they run after cars to sell all kinds ofthings to passengers.

The reading passage ‘Lazy Drones’, in the same book, makes similar asser-tions:

Some children do not behave well in school. They refuse to do any work.They cannot sit quietly in their seats . . . sometimes they do not come toschool at all. They stay at home and play. Other children are very serious.They study hard to pass their examinations. Miss Tetteh is not pleased withthe bad children. She calls them ‘lazy drones’ and warns them to behave. . .

Without recourse to the sociocultural and political factors that tend to advan-tage the privileged few and disadvantage the majority of the pupils, the sto-ries put the blame squarely on the pupils in spite of evidence that many ofthe children who sell on the streets or are involved in other money-makingpursuits do so either to support themselves or to complement the strugglesof their parents. The story about lazy drones also signals teacher disapprovalof weak pupils. The curriculum material thus acts to reproduce and entrenchimportant aspects of inequality (Apple 1979; Young 1992).

Theory-in-use

Although not stated explicitly, the guide clearly endorses the ‘technicalskills’ approach which sees literacy as the development and achievement ofreading and writing skills, such as letter–sound correspondence, phonologi-cal awareness, knowledge of words, sentences and paragraphs, as well aspunctuation (Baker 1996; Garton and Pratt 1998; Martin 1999). Learning isseen as sequential, with teachers moving from phonics instruction to a con-sideration of grammar, syntax and vocabulary. In this way, children who donot develop at the same rate as their peers are identified as inadequate insome way (Baker 1996, 2001; Williams and Snipper 1990).

Larson and Marsh consider the skills approach as:


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Associated with the ‘normally developing’ child who it is assumed lives in afamily which supports the child’s development through the provision of partic-ular resources and literacy practices. It establishes middle class norms as thedesirable literacy experiences that all children should enjoy, and interventionprogrammes are designed for ‘at risk’ families on how to support their chil-dren’s literacy development towards this one predetermined end. (2005, 5)

Pedagogical intentions

The implicit pedagogical intentions of teachers’ guides appear to be influ-enced by the transmission method of teaching, with particular emphasis ongrammar, as illustrated by the general objectives set out for each unit, exam-ples of which follow:

Unit 3: Winning the Race (Teacher’s Guide 4, 24)

By the end of this unit pupils will be able to use the past tense of irregularverbs correctly. They will be able to read silently and reasonably fast answer-ing questions based on the text and . . . develop an interest in the habit ofreading by visiting the library.

Unit 4: Animals (Teacher’s Guide 5, 32)

By the end of this unit pupils will be able to use the simple present and sim-ple past and the future with will correctly, and consolidate their knowledge ofcountable and uncountable nouns.

Unit 2: Instructions and Directions (Teacher’s Guide 6, 23)

By the end of this lesson pupils will be able to use the imperative tense forgiving instructions and directions, ask and answer questions about quantityand use the present perfect continuous tense correctly.

While these issues are important, many observers feel they are not enoughin themselves to prepare children either for demanding literacy tasks, or theexpectations of junior and senior high school. The Gateway to English text-books to a large extent transmit the dominant, autonomous, elitists valuesand beliefs of society (Apple 1992; Luke 1988).

Implications for language and literacy development

The important role of textbooks, particularly in developing countries, as the‘rhythms of school life’ (Barton 1994), the ‘authorised version of society’svalid knowledge’ (Olson 1989), and as ‘the most revered of texts’ especiallyamong teachers (Richardson 2004), is well articulated in the literature(Heyneman, Farrell, and Sepulveda-Stuardo 1981; Heyneman and Jamison1980; Heyneman, Jamison, and Montenegro 1984; Peacock 1995).


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The reasons why textbooks continue to dominate teaching and learningespecially in classrooms in developing countries could be attributed to theconsiderable advantage they offer for both teachers and pupils. Textbooksgenerally define the goals and objectives of schooling and provide the basicsor a major part of cultural knowledge (Liu 2005a, 2005b). They enable chil-dren to learn about the society in which they live and also about the worldbeyond their immediate community. Textbooks reflect and teach cultural val-ues and norms and also provide children with cultural representations ofsocial identities and roles and show children ‘images of what they can andshould be like when they grow up’ (Kalmus 2004).

Textbooks provide some psychological satisfaction for students as theyuse them to measure their progress and academic achievement. Sheldon(1988) notes that students often believe that published materials have morecredibility than teacher-generated or ‘in-house’ materials. For many pupils,however, especially in Africa, the school textbook is the only source oflearning material in basic schooling (Arboleda 1998; Montagnes 2001;Opoku-Amankwa 2010).

From the perspective of teachers, textbooks offer an efficient tool for les-son preparation, are cost effective, and allow for adaptation and improvisa-tion. When properly developed, they are an effective resource for self-directed learning and a reference source for students; they offer ideas andactivities, a framework for less experienced teachers. They can also supportteachers through potentially disturbing and threatening change processes,demonstrating new and/or untried methodologies, introducing change gradu-ally, and creating scaffolding upon which teachers can build a more creativemethodology of their own (Hutchinson and Torres 1994; Peacock 1995).

In Ghana, as in many developing countries, teachers tend to be poorlyqualified and untrained with limited knowledge of the content of the sub-jects they teach; frequently, they have poor command of the language ofinstruction (Montagnes 2001; Opoku-Amankwa 2008; Peacock 1995). Theytherefore rely on the textbook as their main source for teaching and learning.Further, professional refresher courses for teachers are rare in developingcountries and this lack of training leads to teachers’ over-reliance on thetextbooks for guidance on what and how to teach.

Following from the findings and the above discussions, it is possible tosuggest that if teachers closely follow the suggestions in the teachers’guides, they risk creating a classroom with a lively teacher and silent stu-dents or what can be referred to as a teacher-do-all-lesson. Teachers wouldin many instances invoke children’s positive chorus responses to justify theirclaim that a lesson has been taught whereas, in reality, there is a seriouspossibility that little or nothing has been learnt.

In a largely multilingual society such as Ghana where English (the med-ium of instruction) is a second and sometimes a third language (and, formost pupils the only avenue for learning English is the school environment),


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it may be more appropriate to use a sociocritical approach to language andliteracy development. In this approach, learning is seen as a process ofsocial interaction which takes place in a socially constructed context and indifferent modes, formats and shapes, making maximum use of all availableresources in the school as well as home environments (Gee 2004; Schwarzerand Luke 2001). Learning is seen as a process involving apprenticeship(Rogoff 1990), guided participation and scaffolding (Bruner 1985) andempowerment of learners (Apple 1979, 1992; Cummins 1996, 2000).

Like teachers, text materials need to consistently draw on students’ inter-ests and experiences as a way of making literacy personally meaningful;learners should be encouraged to offer their own interpretation to materialsthey read rather than merely recounting stories (Comber 2003; Hall 2003;Larson and Marsh 2005). There is a need then to develop the textbooks withexamples and content activities such that the individual lessons fit into thegeneral development of the learning programme. Krashen and Terrell (2000,123) refer to content in the context of language learning as ‘learning aca-demic subject matter such as math, science, social studies, art, and music inthe target language’. The learning of content in a language helps to maintaininterest and foster understanding. It promotes authentic language learningand higher-order thinking, reinforces learning across the curriculum, espe-cially for those learning a language (English in the case of schools inGhana) as both a target language and a medium of instruction (Krashen andTerrell 2000).

These findings then present a test-case for publishers, authors and materi-als’ developers as well as teachers in book famine communities such asGhana where the textbook is the main material for language and literacydevelopment.

Conclusion

In this study we set out to investigate, from a sociocritical perspective, threetextbooks for primary classes 4, 5 and 6, from the Gateway to English forPrimary Schools series used in classrooms in Ghana. The main thrust of thestudy was to determine the extent to which the textbooks and their comple-mentary teachers’ guides apply the tenets of the sociocritical language andliteracy approach. We found from the reading comprehension tasks andactivities that the emphasis of the authors has been on asking closed ques-tions that require short, straightforward answers and those that requiredichotomous yes/no or true/false answers. There is little emphasis on the ref-erential questions which would require the pupils to be independent and crit-ical in their responses. Our investigation of the writing tasks revealed theauthors’ bias towards writing as a product rather than as process. The words,phrases and sentences at play here are author- or at best teacher-generatedand this rids the tasks of their authenticity. With respect to collaborative


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work, it was found that even though there would appear to be lots of groupactivities suggested by the textbooks, they are rather contrived activities thattoil at stimulating real-life collaboration. The collaborative activities andtasks do not really engender active and spontaneous participation. These anda few others tend to remove the texts from the real-life sociocultural domainof the pupils, thus diluting their potential to stimulate pupils’ interest,develop creativity and interactive learning, and to create cultural awareness(Fenner and Newby 2000), and in effect widening the gap between schoolknowledge and home knowledge. We have further discussed the implica-tions of the findings to language and literacy as well as textbook develop-ment and suggested the need to develop content-based textbooks particularlyfor book famine situations such as Ghana.

The real test of how the book influences and determines classroom life,however, is to observe teacher, pupil, and text interaction in the classroom.The textbook, however finely written, does not itself cause students to learn.Within the classroom context, the school text is always the object of teachermediation and any attempt to understand how textbooks influence learningshould first examine how teachers use the textbook and the rationale fortheir decisions.

Notes1. Anyidoho, A., Ntumy, T., Sraha, I., and Appiah, F. 2008. New Gateway to

English for Primary Schools. Harlow, UK and Accra: Pearson Longman andSedco. Pupil’s Book 4: ISBN 97805822726; Teacher’s Guide 4: ISBN9780582822436; Pupil’s Book 5: ISBN 9781408206751; Teacher’s Guide 5:ISBN 9781408208434; Pupil’s Book 6: ISBN 9781408206768.

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What is in a textbook? Investigating the language and literacy learning principles of the ‘Gateway...

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