The new Course of Study, which was revised in 2008, promotes balanced allocation of four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in designing lessons, and addresses an important role of grammar which is assumed to underpin communication activities. This study has compared the communication tasks in new textbooks published by four major publishers to investigate how communication tasks differ according to the publishers, grades, and sections of the textbooks. Following Usuda et al. (2012), this study used the criteria of task-likeliness: interactional requirement of pair or group work, focus on message, requirement of outcome, explicitness of task completion, and authenticity (Skehan, 1998; Ellis, 2003; Willis & Willis, 2007). The results showed that many of the tasks in Publisher C, which contain information gaps, were rated most task-likely, especially with respect to the outcome. Such tendency was observed all through the textbooks, or regardless of the sections of the textbooks. With respect to the grades, there were two publishers in which the textbooks for the second-and third-year students were rated more task-likely than those for the first-year students; however the other two publishers did not reveal such a feasible organization of the textbooks. Such diversity was also observed with respect to the sections of the textbooks.

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The new Course of Study, which was revised in 2008, promotes balanced allocation of four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in designing lessons, and addresses an important role of grammar which is assumed to underpin communication activities. This study has compared the communication tasks in new and old textbooks published by three major bookmakers to investigate changes caused by the revision of the Course of Study. Following Usuda et al. (2009), this study used the criteria of task-likeliness: interactional requirement of pair or group work, focus on message, requirement of outcome, explicitness of task goal, and authenticity (Willis & Willis, 2007). The results showed the new textbooks of all three publishers required less interaction in pair or group work, but that the new textbooks of the two publishers stated the task goal more explicitly. This reflects the tendency that the activities in the new textbooks are more form-oriented, which consequently lessens interactional requirement. However, this trend is backed up by balanced distribution of four skills, which leads to a communication task followed by the writing task in which the students are in many cases told to sum up what they talked in the communication task.

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本稿では，小学校外国語活動で主に使用されている教材『Hi, friends!』（5，6 年生用）と中学校1 年生で使用されている英語教科書（4 社）に掲載されているコミュニケーション活動について，臼田他 (2009)で行ったタスク性分析を用いて調査した。さらに，教科書で用いられている活動が学習者の動 機づけを高めるのか調べるために，授業分析の手法として用いられるMotivation Orientation of Language Teaching (Guilloteaux & Dörnyei，2008)を用いることにした。結果はタスク性分析のすべての 項目について，中学校英語教科書よりも『Hi, friends!』の方がタスク性が高く，動機づけを高める要素についても一部を除いて，『Hi, friends!』で扱われる活動の方に多く含まれていることが明らかになった。よって，『Hi, friends!』で扱われているコミュニケーション活動は，中学校の教科書に比べタスク性が高く，学習者の動機づけを高めるようなストラテジーを使用することが想定される。また，コミュニケーション活動におけるタスク性と動機づけを高める要素との関係について検証したところ，動機づけを高める要素を含む活動の方がタスク性が高くなった。

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