What Causes the Gap Between Junior and Senior High School English Textbooks? An Analysis Focusing on Noun Phrases with Postmodification

Abstract

Not a few first-year senior high school students perceive senior high school English textbooks as significantly more difficult than junior high school English textbooks. The purpose of the current study is to identify factors contributing to the gap between junior and senior high school textbooks, by an analysis focusing on noun phrases (NPs) with postmodification that are known to be difficult for Japanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners to acquire. The results indicate that (1) the number of sentences containing the target NP structures dramatically increases from the 9thgrade textbooks to the 10th-grade textbooks, that (2) this substantial increase is primarily associated with structures introduced in junior high school, not in senior high school, and that (3) the increase of NPs postmodified by prepositional phrases is most pronounced of all the target structures. These findings suggest the possibility of NPs with postmodification being a crucial factor to the gap experienced by many first-year senior high school students. Some pedagogical implications for Japanese senior high school EFL classrooms are discussed.