The Task-likeness of Communication Activities in Junior High School English Textbooks Revised in 2021

• Published in: HELES JOURNAL Vol. 23; pp. 37 - 50
• Main Authors: YAMASHITA, Junichi, SAKAI, Yuuko, TAKAHASHI, Tomoya, USUDA, Yoshiyuki, TERUYAMA, Shuichi, ONO, Yoshiyasu, SHIMURA, Akinobu, MISAWA, Yasuhide, TAKEUCHI, Norihiko, NAKAJIMA, Takako
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: The Hokkaido English Language Education Society 2024; 北海道英語教育学会
• Subjects: タスク性; 中学校; 教科書分析
• ISSN: 1347-6343; 2434-0243
• DOI: 10.24675/helesje.23.0_37

We have investigated the task-likeness of speaking activities in junior high school English textbooks and clarified the differences between publishers and the characteristics of speaking activities on each publisher. In 2021, English textbooks for junior high school were revised, and all textbooks significantly changed at this revision. Therefore, we investigated the task-likeness of speaking activities on six new English textbooks revised in 2021 to clarify the differences between publishers and the characteristics of each publisher. We used task-likeness criteria developed by Usuda et al.(2014) and added two new criteria. The researchers analyzed all speaking activities of 18 English textbooks published by six publishers from the first grade to the third grade with the criteria of a five-point scale. The results showed the polarization between high task-likeness and low task-likeness textbooks and some characteristics of each publisher.