An Analysis of Language Activities in Upper Secondary School English Coursebooks

Abstract

The Course of Study for upper secondary schools published in 2008 requires an increase in the number of language activities. This requirement is certain to affect content in coursebooks: the number of language activities in coursebooks should be increased. This present study therefore seeks to uncover and describe the changes in frequency and form of language activities in coursebooks between those based on the previous Course of Study, and those based on the current one. In the study, language activities placed after each main text were classified into four categories based on Littlewood's framework (Littlewood, 1981). The main results are that the number of language activities has increased to 550 from 517, and that the difference between functional communication activities and social interaction activities in coursebooks for English Communication I and II is considerably smaller than that for English I and II.