An Analysis of Writing Materials in Senior High School English Textbooks in Taiwan

[[abstract]]ABSTRACT The main goal of the current study is to analyze the writing sections in three English textbook series frequently used in senior high schools—i.e. the FE, SM and LT series. For the analysis of the instructional focuses and task features of the writing sections in the three series, a coding scheme from Chan (2001) was adapted. A secondary goal of the study is to investigate the beliefs of English teachers about writing instruction, and their use and assessment of the writing sections. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six senior high school English teachers. Results of the textbook content analysis revealed that the three series featured significantly different instructional focuses. The FE series focused almost exclusively on rhetorical organization and genres. The SM series was concerned mainly with grammar and rhetorical organization, with some attention given to writing strategies. In the LT series, grammar and rhetorical organization were also the focus of instruction; yet it differed from the SM series in its additional attention to genres rather than strategies. These findings indicated that the three series all gave great salience to rhetorical organization. Grammar and genres, on the other hand, received differential degrees of treatment. The least amount of attention, as has been shown, was devoted to strategy training. These results suggest that the three series adopted a primarily product-oriented approach to writing instruction. Writing processes, for the most part, were marginalized. Regarding task features, the three series shared several major similarities. To start with, all three series included recognition exercises to raise students’ awareness about basic paragraph structure. Furthermore, they drew extensively on the use of reading texts as writing samples for paragraph writing tasks. Particularly worth noting was the finding that the SM and LT series, in order to reinforce linguistic structures, devoted a portion of their tasks to sentence writing practice. In the FE series, sentence writing tasks were virtually non-existent. The analysis of the semi-structured interviews yielded a number of important findings. First, the teachers were found to teach writing mainly for the sake of exams, to facilitate self-expression, and to help students integrate learned materials. Their underlying beliefs about writing instruction were predominantly rhetorical and linguistic, focusing on paragraph structure, transition, and linguistic patterns. Second, in terms of the use of their textbook writing sections, the majority of the teachers reported that they did use them, but on a selective basis. Their criteria for selection were found to be conciseness and relevance. One teacher, being the only exception, ignored these writing sections entirely mainly due to their irrelevance to monthly tests, their lesson final positions, and time constraints. As for supplementary materials, picture writing materials and published writing textbooks were found most favorable among the teachers. Third, with regard to the evaluation of these textbook writing sections, the treatment of rhetorical organization was most positively assessed across the three series. Responses to grammar, writing strategies, genres, and tasks, on the other hand, all turned out to be somewhat mixed. Overall, the teachers responded most positively to the rhetorical focus of the three series, indicating that their beliefs were generally consistent with results of the textbook content analysis. The findings of the present study will advance our understanding of the writing sections in three major high school textbook series. They will assist textbook compilers to compensate for the limitations of these teaching materials in future materials development. These findings can also aid high school teachers in making more informed decisions about how to use these textbook writing materials flexibly and draw on support materials whenever necessary. Finally, based on the findings of the current study, a number of pedagogical and practical implications are provided.