Globality in the global textbook: principles and applicability

Ministry of Higher Education Scientific Research and Technology
University of Manouba
Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities
Department of English

«Globality» in the Global Textbook:

Principles and Applicability

Thesis Submitted for Partial Fulfillment of Master Degree

Prepared by
Mimoun ^Melliti

Supervised by
Dr. Faiza Derbel

September 2010

Abstract

This study aims at exploring the issue of «globality» in global coursebooks as manifested in investing features of connectedness, avoiding inappropriacy, and preserving inclusivity. In order to do this exploration, two research methods, content analysis and the questionnaire, were adopted. The content of an example of global coursebooks, Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003), in addition to the perception of 251 of its users at Bourguiba Institute for Living Languages in Tunis (IBLV), were investigated. The results obtained revealed that «globality», in terms of connectedness, inappropriacy, and inclusivity is partial in Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) as learners' perceptions of it do not map with the content in the coursebook. This study raises questions about the suitability of global coursebooks to globally diverse learners and reveals the necessity of taking measures in the direction of localising the content of EFL coursebooks.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the following people without whom this work would not have been completed.

First, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor Dr. Faiza Derbel for her endless support throughout all the stages of working on the thesis.

Second, I am grateful to my mother Habiba, my father Youssef, my brother Wahid, all my sisters, and my fiancé Besma Msekni for their confidence, patience, and support.

Third, I would like to thank Dr. Michael Fennell from Jenin University for reading and commenting on a preliminary version of this thesis. His comments have been very illuminating.

Fourth, I am thankful to my colleagues Nizar ben Ali and Houcem Jouini for their assistance with collecting the questionnaires.

Finally, I am indebted to 3^rd year students, teachers, and the administrative staff at IBLV in Tunis for their cooperation, especially Mrs. Hayet Toukebri, for facilitating access to the participants.

Table of contents

Abstract i

Acknowledgments ii

Table of contents iii

List of acronyms and abbreviations viii

List of tables ix

List of figures x

Chapter One: Introduction	.1
1.1 Background to the study	1
1.2. Terminology	7
1.2.1. The global coursebook	.7
1.2.2. «Globality»	7
1.2.3. Inclusivity	8
1.2.4. Inappropriacy	8
1.2.5. Connectedness	8
1.3. Research aims	.9
1.4. Research questions	.9
1.5. Methodology	10
1.6. Organisation of the thesis	11
Conclusion	12

Chapter Two: Literature Review .13

2.0. Introduction 13

2.1. Evolution of English textbooks 13

2.1.1. Early textbooks of English: 1530-1870 13

2.1.2. Early 20^th century English textbooks 16

2.1.3. Global coursebooks 17

2.1.3.1. A globalised content . 19

2.1.3.2. Defining connectedness 20

2.1.3.3. Connectedness in coursebooks .21

2.2. The value attached to ELT coursebooks 23

2.2.1. The advantages of coursebooks .24

2.2.2. The disadvantages of coursebooks 27

2.3. Culture in the global coursebook 33

2.3.1. Defining culture 33

2.3.2. Cultural appropriacy .34

2.3.2.1. Defining inappropriacy 35

2.3.2.2. On avoiding inappropriacy in global coursebooks 36

2.3.3. Investing target language culture in ELT coursebooks . ..37

2.4. The issue of representation in ELT textbooks 42

2.4.1. Defining «inclusivity» .......44

2.4.2. Explanations of inclusivity 44

2.4.2.1. Objective explanations ...44

2.4.2.2. Ideological explanations 45

2.4.3. Attempts of preserving inclusivity 48

2.4.4. Unresolved issues 51

Conclusion 53

Chapter Three: Methodology of the study	. 55
3.0. Introduction	55
3.1. Organisation of the study	.55
3.2. Research methods	56
3.2.1. The quantitative / qualitative debate	..56
3.2.2. The content analysis	..57
3.2.3. The questionnaire	60
3.3. Methodology of content analysis .	61
3.3.1. Procedures of analysing the content	. 61
3.3.2. Data handling	67
3.4. Questionnaire used in the study	68
3.4.1. Description of the questionnaire	68
3.4.2. The participants	71
3.4.3. Data collection	72
3.4.4. Data handling	73
Conclusion	74
Chapter Four: Discussion of findings of content analysis ..		75
4.0. Introduction		.75
4.1. The limits of inclusivity in representation .......		75
4.1.1. On gender balance ....		75
4.1.2. On racial balance ...		81
4.2. The global coursebook and cultural inappropriacy		89
4.2.1. Controversial topics avoided ....		89

4.2.2. Controversial topics treated with caution ..91

4.2.3. Controversial topics mentioned .92

4.3. The global coursebook and global connectedness 99

4.3.1. Leisure activities 99

4.3.2. The language issue . 103

4.3.3. Global connectivity 105

Conclusion 106

Chapter Five: Analysis and discussion of questionnaire data

.108

5.0. Introduction

108

5.1. Learners' perception of connectedness

108

5.1.1. Learners' perception of topics

108

5.1.2. Learners' perception of language varieties

111

5.1.3. Perception of the coursebook's connectedness potential

112

5.2. Learners' perception of inappropriacy

114

5.2.1. Appropriate issues for learners

116

5.2.2. Inappropriate issues for learners .

119

5.3. Learners' perception of inclusivity

122

5.3.1. Cultural inclusivity

..122

5.3.1.1. `High' cultures

123

5.3.1.2. `Low' cultures

125

5.3.2. The inclusivity of learners' individual lives

126

5.3.2.1. High closeness

.128

5.3.2.2. Medium closeness

129

5.3.2.3. Low closeness Conclusion Chapter Six: Conclusion

130 .132 . 134

6.0. Introduction

134

6.1. Major findings

134

6.2. Contribution of the study

135

6.3. Limitations of the study

136

6.4. Suggestions for further research

.136

6.5. Recommendations

...137

References Appendix A: Questionnaire for learners

139 149

Appendix

B:

The

women number,

the

roles,

and

the

topics ..

related 150

to

Appendix

C:

The men

number,

the

roles

and

the .

topics

related 151

to

Appendix

D:

The

Whites number,

the

roles,

and

the

topics

related 152

to

Appendix

E:

The

number,

the

roles,

and

the

topics

related

to

Blacks .....153

Appendix F: The number, the roles, and the topics related to the Asians ....154

Appendix G: The numbers, the roles, and the topics related to diverse

characters ..155

Appendix H: Controversial topics in the coursebook 156

List of acronyms and abbreviations

B: Baccalaureate

BE: Business English

EFL: English as a Foreign Language ELT: English Language Teaching ESL: English as a Second Language ET: English for tourism

FL : Foreign Language

GE: General English

H/I: Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003)

I.B.L.V: Bourguiba Institute of Living Languages

L : Licence

L1 culture: First Language culture

L2 culture: Second Language culture M: Maitrise

OMR: Out of marriage relationships O: Other

PARSNIP: politics, Alcohol, Religion, Sex, Narcotics, Isms, and Pork SE: Scientific English

List of Tables

Table 1: Numbers of new textbooks, by phase and skill, 1530-1870 (Michael, 1993, p.

6)	14
Table 2: A sample of inclusivity tables	65
Table 3: Table devised to explore inappropriacy	66
Table 4: Background information of the participants	.71
Table 5: Referring items related to spiritual beverages in each unit of the coursebook	92
Table 6: Leisure activities and their frequency in each unit of the coursebook...	100
Table 7: Publishers' success with handling inappropriacy	121

List of figures

Figure 1: Research flowchart	55
Figure 2: Themes and methodology for coding content	.63
Figure 3: Presence of women across units	76
Figure 4: Presence of men across units .	.78
Figure 5: Representation of racial minorities	.81
Figure 6: The presence of the Whites across the units	82
Figure 7: The presence of the Blacks across the units	.84
Figure 8: The presence of the Asians across the units	85
Figure 9: Frequency of mention of leisure activities in the coursebook	101
Figure 10: Distribution of global settings in the coursebook	105
Figure 11: Participants' perception of what should be the kind of content in the coursebook	109
Figure 12: Respondents' perception of specificity of topics in H/I	110
Figure 13: Preferred language varieties for the respondents	.111
Figure 14: Respondents' perception of the value of H/I	113
Figure 15: Respondents' perception of mentioning inappropriate issues in H/I	115

Figure 16: Participants' opinion regarding mentioning inappropriate issues in H/I..116

Figure 17: Respondents' perception of cultures in H/I	123
Figure 18: Closeness of the content of H/I to learners' situations	.126
Figure 19: Reported closeness of the content of H/I to learners	127

Chapter One: Introduction

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide background to the topic of this study. It will explain the background and theoretical framework of the study before defining the key terms. Moreover, it will shed light on the general aims of the research and the research questions. Finally, this chapter will provide information concerning the methodology used before clarifying the way the thesis is organised.

1.1 Background to the study

This thesis will explore the extent to which an example of global coursebooks (i.e. coursebooks produced to be disseminated around the world) are `global' in terms of being globally inclusive, globally sensitive to the issue of inappropriacy, and globally investing in what connects people worldwide. This thesis will also explore the way learners using Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) perceive its global content.

As outlined above, themes mentioned in previous research will be explored such as «inclusivity», «inappropriacy» (Gray, 2002), and «connectedness» (Chang, 2003). To do so, this study will review the issues of globalisation and language teaching especially as manifested in connectedness, the question of representation and the implications of inclusivity, and the issue of inappropriacy and the problematic facts related to it.

It is secret to no one that the spread of English language in the world has resulted in the promotion of an already important industry for Anglophone countries and specifically Britain (Howatt, 1984), which is ELT (Graddol, 2000; Gray, 2002; Crystal, 2003; Derbel, 2004). Apart from the exportation of English language practitioners (Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1994) to Outer and especially Expanding Circles (Kachru, 1985), Britain benefited from the exportation of English textbooks (Graddol, 2000; Gray, 2002). Being used in many teaching

situations around the globe, English language textbooks have been called «global» (Graddol, 2000; Gray, 2002).

Global coursebooks are characterised by their global use (Canagarajah, 1999; Graddol, 2000; Gray, 2002). Accordingly, they are worth investigating in terms of content as well as learners' perception of their content. Analysing the content of coursebooks, research studies could focus on the linguistic and cultural content (Michael, 1993). Additionally, investigating learners' perception of global coursebooks, the results of a questionnaire can be corroborated.

What is meant by the term «globality» is the end state of the process of the globalisation of a particular item (Schafer, 2007). Hence, the «globality» of ELT coursebooks is the end state of the globalisation of these teaching materials not only in terms of themes but also in terms of distribution. With reference to the «globality» that is said to be characterising global coursebooks in terms of content (Riches, 1999; Gray, 2002) and use (Phillipson, 1992; Graddol, 2000), it is important to investigate the applicability of the generalised cultural content in these teaching materials (Kilickaya, 2004a; Gray, 2002).

Generalised cultural content is related to coursebook writers' attempt to invest in general topics that take into consideration including and being sensitive to international audiences, which results in the sanitisation of content (Gray, 2002). Investigating the suitability of content for world audiences is important because globalisation, which is defined as the mutual social exchange of influence between remote events and ideologies (Giddens, 1990; Derbel & Richards, 2007), affects coursebooks' production and use (Gray, 2002). Investigating this suitability is what is meant by exploring the «globality» of the global coursebook.

This study is conducted in the 21^st century, where one hears a lot about globalisation, which is «a fashionable term» (p. 1) according to Block & Cameron (2002) and a theme that dominates contemporary discourse and affects the teaching profession according to Derbel & Richards (2007) including the production and dissemination of ELT textbooks.

In fact, globalisation, being a force that is continuously shaping and reshaping human relationships and products (Giddens, 1990), affects English language teaching in different ways (Derbel & Richards, 2007). Kubota (2002), for example, describes the way globalisation frames ELT in Japan representing the discourse of `Kokusaika' (i.e. internationalisation) characterising teaching, contributing, thus, in the promotion of the `interconnectedness' marking ELT (Derbel & Richards, 2007). The discourse of `Kokusaika' (Kubota, 2002) could be seen as an attempt towards the end state of globalisation, which is «globality». For the Japanese, the discourse of `Kukusaika' meant the use of a global medium, which is English, to transmit Japanese culture to the world (ibid).

Additionally, Cameron (2002) stresses the fact that globalisation influences ELT through framing the kind of communication used by global users, which is most of the time related to the dominant's varieties and modes of communication. Accordingly, Kramsch and Thorne (2002), defining communication as information exchange, highlight the fact that this kind of communication is manifested in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories, methods, and tasks. Such methods and tasks, according to Block (2002) are not sufficient to cater for the globally diverse aspects of English language learning. what is meant by this is that modes of communication are not the same all over the world while SLA theories assume they are so (ibid).

Globalisation influences also the materials used in ELT (Block & Cameron, 2002). For instance, Gray (2002) attests that this influence is manifested in the claims of «globality» that

the publishers of global coursebooks claim in order to maximise profit. He suggests that, concerning the relationship between globalisation and ELT materials, the future will be for diversity of these materials not homogeneity. This prediction entails that the global coursebook will more and more tend to be glocalised by producing coursebooks that meet the needs of local users while preserving their connection with the world (Gray, 2002).

In this context, the notion of connectedness manifested in what the publishers that Gray (2002) interviewed call constructing bridges between what is local and what is global, is noticeable in the idea of «glocalisation, [being] a neologism which attempts to capture something of the complexity inherent in globalisation by conflating the terms global and local» (p. 166, italics in original). What Gray (2002) means by this suggestion is the inclusion of local topics, aspirations, and concerns in the content of coursebooks in order to motivate the users and avoid possible resistance. One might add that this that such possible resistance does not only concern the learners but also the teachers, as clarified by Canagarajah (1999) and Gray (2002) respectively. While Canagarajah (1999) argues that resistance can be manifested in learners' distortion of their coursebooks, Gray (2002) provided evidence that some teachers are not satisfied with the kind of content that global coursebooks communicate.

Different ELT theorists have considered coursebooks of paramount importance (Hutchinson and Torres, 1994; Tomlinson, 2001) while others have warned that coursebooks are not suitable (Allwright, 1982; Rinvolucri, 1999). Whether a coursebook is `good' or `bad' depends on the angle from which one looks at it and the kind of content existing in the coursebook. Hence, what is important is that evaluating coursebooks is a necessity. For example, Nunan (1991) claimed that the evaluation of coursebooks is the final stage in its production. For this reason, this study explores the cultural content in an attempt to

contribute to the literature on the issues related to the extent to which global coursebooks can be said to have a real «globality» in themes and in representation.

In fact, coursebooks have been subject to various kinds of examination. Ellis (1997) differentiates between `predictive evaluation' and `retrospective evaluation'. While predictive evaluation concerns the decision of choosing the suitable material, retrospective evaluation focuses on materials that are already in use. Rea-Dickens (1994) adds to this distinction the description of the post-use evaluation. She distinguishes between pre-use evaluation, in-use evaluation, and post-use evaluation.

Nunan (1991) enumerates the different perspectives and angles from which commercial coursebooks could be evaluated. He adopts the six perspectives for evaluating materials that Littlejohn and Windeatt (1989) mentioned:

1. The general or subject knowledge contained in the materials.

2. Views on the nature and acquisition of knowledge.

3. Views on the nature of language learning.

4. Role relations implicit in materials.

5. Opportunities for the development of cognitive abilities.

6. The value and attitudes inherent in the materials (qtd in Nunan, 1991, p. 209).

Nunan (1991) comments that such a scheme is modest in the sense of being more realisable than calls for inviting teachers to «adopt a critical stance towards the materials' aims, appropriateness, and utility» (p. 209), as proposed by Breen and Candlin (1987).

Litz (n.d) asserts that recent research studies on coursebook evaluation are documented to focus on many issues such as «textbook design and practicality, methodological validity,

the role of textbooks in innovation, the authenticity of materials in terms of their representation of language, and the appropriateness of gender representation, subject matter, and cultural components» (p. 2). As stated by Nunan (1991), «[e]valuating and selecting commercial materials is not an easy task» (p. 209). It is so because many decisions need to be taken concerning these two operations like «[matching] the materials with the goals and objectives of the program, and [ensuring] that they are consistent with [teachers'] beliefs about the nature of language and learning, as well as with (...) learners' attitudes, beliefs and preferences (ibid, italics mine). Therefore, it is essential to evaluate teaching materials and particularly coursebooks in order to forecast, measure, or evaluate their suitability for learners around the globe.

Numerous studies have focused on the evaluation of the cultural content in global coursebooks such as the investigation of stereotyping (Clarke & Clarke, 1991) and gender representation starting from the seventies (Hartman & Judd, 1978; Porreca, 1984; Gray, 2002; Mineshima, 2008).

All of the issues stressed in this background to the study will be closely dealt with throughout the thesis as they are related to the issues explored in this study; connectedness, inappropriacy, and inclusivity.

Hence, this thesis is an attempt to contribute to research on coursebooks and more specifically on the issue of applicability of global coursebooks for learners around the world. Additionally, this study attempts to explore learners' perception of an example of these globally marketed teaching materials with special emphasis on Tunisian learners. In the following section, the key terms used in the study will be defined.

1.2. Terminology

Five important terms will be defined in this section: the global coursebook, «globality», inclusivity, inappropriacy, and connectedness.

1.2.1. The global coursebook

Global coursebooks are English language coursebooks produced mainly in the so-called «Inner Circle» (Kachru, 1985), labelled also «core countries» (Pennycook, 1994), which are the USA, UK, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia, These textbooks are, to use Kachru's (1985) terminology, distributed in the Outer and Expending circles or in what Pennycook (1994) calls «periphery countries». Put clearly, the global textbook is «a kind of text designed to be used in English language teaching worldwide» (Block & Cameron, 2002, p. 10).

The appearance of global coursebooks is most of the time related to business and globalisation as «the need to cater to international markets has given rise to the concept of «the global coursebook», which can be used by students at a particular level and age group anywhere in the world, regardless of culture» (Ranalli, 2003, p. 3-4). There are actually many coursebooks that are designed to be used worldwide and one could mention Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 1986, 1996), Market Leader (Muskull & Heitler, 2007) and Cutting Edge (Canningham & Moor, 2005) with their various levels claimed to be designed to meet the needs of each targeted population of learners. The present study will focus on one coursebook which is New Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars, 2003).

1.2.2. «Globality»

Schafer (2007) defines «globality» as the product of the process of globalisation (p. 1). He depicts it as the end situation of the worldwide spread of a particular item. For example, the «globality» of English language is the situation that this language has reached as a result

of the process of its globalization (ibid). In relation to the present concern of this study, «globality» is taken to mean the end situation resulting from the spread of the global coursebook; that is the global aspect taken, by publishers or learners, to be one of the characteristics of coursebooks marketed internationally. In brief, it is the extent to which the coursebook is global.

1.2.3. Inclusivity

Inclusivity as stated by Gray (2002) means the tendency of equally including and representing all members of society including women, age, class, ethnic origin, and elderly people (p. 158). This concept is important as it will be used in exploring the extent to which a coursebook is inclusive, in the sense of paying special attention to depicting members of any given society in the world.

1.2.4. Inappropriacy

Inappropriacy, as dealt with by Renner (1997) and Gray (2002), concerns coursebook writers' attempt to provide «safe topics» (Gray, 2002. p 159) by avoiding culturally offending references. This notion is important as it allows exploring the extent to which coursebook writers are sensitive to offensive cultural content, which permits drawing possible implications of the presence or absence of such sensitivity. Examples of inappropriate cultural references include politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms, and pork (Gray, 2002).

1.2.5. Connectedness

Connectedness concerns the features that are indications of investment of what is assumed to be connecting people worldwide (Tomlinson, 1998; Chang, 2003) such as the examples of sport, music, travel, holidays, Standard English, and other leisure activities.

Hence, the content analysis of H/I will focus on the themes of inclusivity, inappropriacy, and connectedness in an attempt to explore the «globality» of this textbook as an example of global coursebooks.

1.3. Research aims

The concern of this thesis is to explore the features of «globality» in the global coursebook and the extent to which publishers' concern in implementing inclusivity, avoiding inappropriacy, as well as investing in connectedness is successful and attainable. It is concerned also with the way learners perceive this «globality». Thus, «globality» in this thesis is examined in terms of three main features; preserving inclusivity, avoiding inappropriacy (Gray, 2002), and investing in connectedness (Tomlinson, 1998; Chang, 2003).

1.4. Research questions

Considering the research aims mentioned above, a number of research questions can be formulated to guide exploration of the analysis of global content and perspective of global coursebooks by drawing on literature on features of the global coursebook. In addition, learners' perceptions of this «globality» will be explored in order to find out the extent to which they perceive the coursebook as being global in terms of content. Thus, two research questions are proposed as research focus in this thesis.

1. To what extent Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) global?

2. What are the learners' perceptions of the global aspects of H/I as a global coursebook?

To answer these questions, the researcher adopted two research methods, which are the content analysis of H/I and the questionnaire method that are described in details in Chapter Three.

1.5. Methodology

In order to explore the real «globality» of the global coursebook in terms of its preservation of inclusivity, avoidance of inappropriacy, and investment in connectedness, the analysis of the content of a sample of global coursebooks is necessary. Additionally, in order to investigate learners' perceptions of the international aspects of the global coursebook, the questionnaire is an important tool. Therefore, two research methods were adopted which are the content analysis method and the questionnaire. These two means of eliciting data from the coursebook and the respondents were adopted for their directness and credibility (Geer, 1991). The full description of the reasons and the way the global coursebook chosen for analysis (Headway Intermediate, Soars & Soars, 2003) was analysed together with the presentation of the questionnaire are to be found in Chapter Three entitled: `Methodology of the study'.

However, to sum them up, it could be said that the content analysis was done systematically in the sense of exploring representation of the features of inclusivity, inappropriacy, and connectedness in all the units of the coursebook. While the focus concerning inclusivity was on gender balance and representation of minorities, inappropriacy was explored in terms of the frequency of mention of inappropriate issues as outlined by Gray (2002) and (Phillipson, 1992). As to connectedness it was explored in terms of the treatment of leisure activities, language varieties, and global connectivity.

The questions in the questionnaire are of two types. Closed-ended questions aimed at enabling students to choose from proposed alternatives that concerned their perceptions of the global coursebook and the issues related to it. Besides, open-ended questions aimed at extracting direct information concerning some additional data that were not prescribed in the

alternatives. Two sections constitute the questionnaire. While the first section provides background information concerning the learners, the second section explores learners' perceptions of «globality» in the global coursebook they are using. The global coursebook chosen for analysis in this thesis is New Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003). The respondents of the questionnaire were 251 learners at IBLV in Tunis who are receiving tuition in English and whose teachers are using H/I in class.

1.6. Organisation of the thesis

This thesis contains six chapters. The first chapter, as already stated, introduces the background, the terminology, the general aims, the research questions, and the organisation of the thesis. The second chapter deals with the various issues related to the global coursebook such as its value, the position of culture in it, and the issue of representation. Chapter Three is reserved for the explanations of the methodology of the study. It will contain the organisation of the study, justification of the instruments, and the methodology of the content analysis and the questionnaire.

The fourth chapter reports and discusses the results of the analysis of the coursebook. Three sections constitute the discussion of the findings. While the first section concerns the limits of inclusivity in representation, the second section deals with the global coursebook and cultural inappropriacy. In the third section the focus is on the issue of the global coursebook and global connectedness.

In light of the literature review and the findings of the content analysis the fifth chapter will shed light on the findings of the questionnaire. The thesis concludes with a synthesis of the major findings and a discussion of the contribution of the study, its limitations, and suggestions for future research in the sixth chapter.

The starting point of this thesis will be to review the literature on the issue of the global coursebook in terms of its value as documented by researchers, the place of culture in it, and the question of representation in order to provide theoretical foundations for the study. These issues are considered important in ELT (English Language Teaching) global coursebooks and for the present study, as they might influence learners' perceptions as to these teaching materials.

Conclusion

This chapter contained introductory notes on the issue of «globality» in the global coursebook explored in this thesis. The concern in Chapter Two will be the review of the literature on the topic.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

2.0. Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to review the literature on ELT coursebooks (called also interchangeably textbooks) starting from tracking their evolution in terms of content and audience with special reference to the context of globalisation. The «globality» of the content is explored in terms of «connectedness» (Tomlinson, 1998; Chang, 2003), «inappropriacy», and «inclusivity» (Gray, 2002) following review of major historical developments in the design and use of ELT textbooks and assessing the value of these textbooks as teaching materials.

2.1. Evolution of English textbooks

This section will deal with the early textbooks of English (before 1900) and the 20^th century textbooks of English respectively. While in the first sub-section the early phases of development are considered (Michael, 1993), in the second sub-section the concentration is mainly on the global coursebook and its «globality» in terms of content.

2.1.1. Early textbooks of English: 1530-1870

Michael's (1993) Early Textbooks of English documents historically the appearance of English textbooks since the 1530s. He describes the textbook in relation to the difference between it and a text advocating that a textbook is a compiled work designed «for the use of schools» (p. 2). As Michael (1993) attests, the appearance of textbooks of English dates back to the 16^th Century. In his study of the early textbooks of English in terms of the numbers and contents, Michael (1993) identified four phases:

· The first phase: 1530-1700

· The second phase: 1701-1760

· The third phase: 1761-1830

· The fourth phase: 1831-1870

The first phase 1530-1700 is characterised by the appearance of the first textbooks which were about rhetorics and spelling. The second phase 1701-1760 is marked by textbooks containing secular and doctrinal texts. The third phase 1761-1830 is characterised by the increase in the number of textbooks published each year while the content witnessed a slow change. The fourth phase 1830-1870 is marked by the impact of social changes on textbooks with the spread of education across society especially in the public sector fostering the production of textbooks (Michael, 1993).

Investigating the production of textbooks of English, he was able to detect four categories of textbooks, which are Reading, Spelling, and Pronunciation (RSP), Reading and literature (RL), Expression and performance (EX), and Grammar and Language (G). Table 1 illustrates his findings.

Table 1: Numbers of new textbooks, by phase and skill, 1530-1870 (Michael, 1993, p. 6).

	1530-1700 170 yrs	1701-60 60 yrs	1761-1830 70 yrs	1831-70 40 yrs		Total	RSP
94	82	339	295	810		RL
31	45	377	519	972		EX
13	13	136	103	265		G
25	42	379	477	923		Total
163	182	1231	1394	2970

The exploration of the table shows that textbooks of English increased in their importance gradually but the most remarkable increase occurred in what Michael (1993) identified as the third phase (1831-1870) in the development of textbooks of English. During this period there occurred a shift from 182 new textbooks, during the second phase, to 1231

textbooks. Such an increase is according to Michael (1993) the result of the changes in society and the spread of education.

What Michael (1993) identified as striking is the closeness characterising the number of grammar and literature textbooks, as the total of Grammar textbooks produced in all phases is 923 while for literature it is 972 (see table 1). Additionally, the exploration of the table shows that the majority of textbooks published in all phases are under the category Reading and Literature (RL) textbooks, which contradicts the stereotype that «grammar was the dominant part of English teaching until the second half of the nineteenth century» (p. 7). However, this could be also explained by the fact that learners need only one grammar book for many purposes while reading and literature can be varied.

Michael reports that the publishers of the textbooks did not state clearly or even implicitly that their books are for school use or for public use in order not to lose both markets (p. 2). What could be deduced from this fact is that authors and publishers, as early as the appearance of textbooks of English, tried to cater for the widest audience in order to maximise profit. Put in its historical context, the textbook could not be marketed outside a given border easily. This is in contrast with the situation today (2010) in the globalising world where the spread of English together with publishers' attempt to seek worldwide distribution resulted in the appearance of a new kind of textbooks that were global in content (Gray, 2002) and use (Graddol, 2000; Crystal, 2003).

However, the worldwide emergence of global coursebooks did not occur until the second half of the 20^th century, as during the first half the concern was primarily laid on methods research (Howatt, 1984).

2.1.2. Early 20th century English textbooks

According to Michael (1993), there are no historical studies of the textbooks of English that it is difficult to trace their detailed evolution.

Surveying the history of ELT, Howatt (1984) covered English language teaching materials, even though not systematically. He suggests four segments of improvement in ELT since 1900:

· Laying the foundations (1900-1922)

· Research and development (1922-1939)

· Consolidation (1945-1960)

· Change and variation since 1960

Howatt (1984) claims that during the «laying the foundations» phase of ELT, a «series of works which have since served as indispensable source-books for every English language teacher» (p. 214) have been written. Examples include The Pronunciation of English (Jones, 1909) and An English Pronouncing Dictionary, on Strictly Phonetic Principles (Jones, 1917).

During the second phase named Research and Development, Howatt (1984) mentions the textbooks written by Palmer (1938) The New Method Grammar and Palmer & Palmer (1925) English Through Actions in addition to Eckersley (1933) A Concise English Grammar for Foreign Students. What Howatt (1984) identified as new in this textbook is the «more relaxed and livelier atmosphere [that were different from] the severely pedagogical texts of some of the rival courses» (p. 216). Howatt (1984) argues that such `livelier atmosphere' is the result of Eckersely (1933) responding to the needs of his foreign learners who are in need of everyday English, which was absent in the existing materials at that time.

The historical survey conducted by Howatt (1984) does not contain a study of the textbooks written during what he identified as the «consolidation» (1945-1960) and the «change and variation» (since 1960) phases. In fact, in these phases he concentrates on the publishing of journals and the evolution of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) as a branch of ELT.

Starting from the sixties, and for political and economic reasons (Phillipson, 1992), ELT coursebooks witnessed an important change as they have become used in many contexts around the world, which resulted in the appearance of globally used textbooks.

2.1.3. Global coursebooks

Block and Cameron (2002) define the global coursebook as «a kind of text designed to be used in English language teaching worldwide» (Block & Cameron, 2002, p. 10). The term global, collocating with the term coursebook, makes the meaning of `global coursebook', an ELT material that targets learners all over the world. The appearance of global coursebooks is most of the time related to business and globalisation (Graddol, 2000; Gray, 2002). This is so as «the need to cater to international markets has given rise to (...) `the global coursebook', which can be used by students at a particular level and age group anywhere in the world, regardless of culture» (Ranalli, 2003, p. 3-4). There are many coursebooks that can be said to have global pertinence. One could mention Headway (Soars & Soars, 1986, 1996, 2003), Market Leader (Muskull & Heitler, 2007), and Cutting Edge (Canningham & Moor, 2005) with their various levels designed to meet the needs of various targeted population of learners. The present study will focus on one coursebook, which is New Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars, 2003).

Of rising importance in contemporary studies in linguistics is the exploration of the cultural content in ELT materials (Gray, 2002; Mineshima, 2008). In fact, the rise of interest in the importance of the cultural content was the result of the spread of the ELT market and that such spread fostered the exportation of British and American textbooks to be used in teaching English in newly created markets (Phillipson, 1992; Canagarajah, 1999). Various organisations from what Phillipson (1992) calls the Inner Circle (North America, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) promoted the use of British and American textbooks under the aid projects such as the Ford Foundation and the British Council (Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1994; Canagarajah, 1999), thus possibly paving the way for the promotion of global coursebooks along with the spread of English, whether intentionally or not.

Regardless of the ideological motives behind this promotion, learners of English all around the world discovered ready-made Inner Circle textbooks, which made ELT and textbooks publishing a major business especially in Britain (Phillipson, 1992; Gray, 2002). Among the issues that have become important is representation in textbooks. Some studies concentrated on the representation age, gender, and social classes in global coursebooks (Arikan, 2005; Mineshiman, 2008). These are outlined in this study after exploring the value of textbooks in the educational operation.

Global coursebooks are considered global, essentially because of their worldwide use and tendency towards «globality» (in the sense of catering for global audiences) in content. As the global coursebook is meant to be addressed to an international audience, the issue of content and mainly the extent to which the textbook could be considered `global' can be of interest. The following sub-section will focus on the globalised content of global coursebooks.

2.1.3.1. A globalised content

The term `content' refers to the linguistic and non-linguistic constituents of coursebooks including topics, pictures, and characters used and represented in these teaching materials (Barrios, 2008). Cook (1983) differentiates between two kinds of content; real (i.e. taken from real life) and imaginary (i.e. invented by the authors) contents (p. 230).

Content can be investigated using the content analysis method described in details in Chapter Three. In their attempt to cater for a global market, coursebook writers tended towards investing in images from the entire world (Gray, 2002; Chang, 2003). They invested in the content, the issues that are assumed to be shared between people around the world, in other words, using what connects people all over the globe (Gray, 2002).

Connectedness, then, is an important element in the design of ELT coursebooks marketed globally. It is, in fact, closely related to globalisation being, as put by Giddens (1990), «[t]he intensification of worldwide social relations linking distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa» (qtd in Wilson, 2005, p. 2). Such a definition suggests that connectedness is a state resulting from peoples' ability to communicate and share their experiences, artefacts (including ELT textbooks), and flow of humans and products across borders (Derbel & Richards, 2007).

Hence, as a result of the continuous globalisation of the human experiences, there appeared evolving connections between people around the world (Derbel, 2004, p. 227). Such connections have been exploited by global ELT coursebook writers in order to cater for world audiences. Defining globalisation, Derbel and Richards (2007) explain that it is «a postmodern condition whereby ideologies (1) continuously flow between the culturally

dominant and less dominant, though more insistently/aggressively from former to latter and (2) are conveyed primarily by means of English in its many local manifestations» (p. 22).

Derbel and Richards (2007) emphasise the continuity and mutual inter-influence (i.e. connectedness) between the powerful and the less powerful forces. It is from this perspective that connectedness can be seen as a fact that promotes «globality» of content in ELT materials.

The process of investing in globally connecting issues (Chang, 2003) in ELT global coursebooks is related to the standardisation of their content (Gray, 2000, 2002), which is a feature of «globality» in global coursebooks. In the same vein, Derbel (2004) argues that English can serve as a connecting rather than a dividing force between `native' and `nonnative' speakers. The following sub-section will define the notion of connectedness and track its features in global coursebooks.

2.1.3.2. Defining connectedness

Connectedness as a principle in ELT global coursebooks has been dealt with, although not thoroughly and directly, by Gray (2002) as well as Chang (2003). It could be said that the term refers to the fact that coursebook writers tend to talk about topics that are considered to be shared by their global audiences. This understanding results in the content of the global coursebooks being dependent only on the issues that are considered to be shared worldwide. As suggested in the definitions of globalisation put by Giddens (1990) and Derbel and Richards (2007) that emphasise social inter-influence, connectedness is linked to globalisation because the first could be considered the result of the second. The following sub-section will explore the features of the investment of coursebooks in what is considered

global. The focus will be on the issues of travel, holidays, tourism, fashion, leisure activities, and `Standard English'.

2.1.3.3. Connectedness in coursebooks

Researchers have detected that the content of the ELT global coursebooks is characterised by the continuous repetitive existence of specific topics resulting in the standardisation of the content of ELT global textbooks (Gray, 2002). This gives the impression that ELT coursebooks look similar to each other as a result of dealing with the same topics and following the same guidelines (Ariew, 1982). This tendency towards tackling the same issues in global coursebooks could be deduced from the recurrence of topics such as travel, holidays, and tourism found in coursebooks as detected by Gray (2002) following his analysis of the first edition of Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 1996). In fact, Gray (2002) noticed the occurrence of these topics in ten units bearing in mind that the total number of units of that coursebook is fourteen.

What is called «aspirational content» (Gray, 2002, p. 161) is the kind of content that motivates learners all around the world and which they strongly desire (ibid). An example of this globally desired content, besides travel, holidays, and shopping, is fashion, which is included in Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 1996) as illustrated by Gray (2002).

A What a fantastic coat! Was it expensive?

B It cost an absolute fortune. But the material's beautiful, and it's got a silk lining.

A Where did you get it?

B I saw it in the window of that new shop in town, you know, it's called `Chic'. A Yes, I know it. They have some lovely stuff, don't they (p. 161)?

The `aspirational content' (Gray, 2002) in global coursebooks is provided using a kind of English that Brown (1990) described as «cosmopolitan» (qtd in Pennycook, 1994, p. 177). What is meant by `cosmopolitan English' is the globally prevailing variety of English that is based on the dissemination of materialistic capitalist values mainly characterised by practicing leisure activities in a world where there are no problems facing individuals (Rinvolucri, 1999). Such a tendency could be beneficial for providing another motivating and `connecting' element between learners.

However, the `aspirational content' could hinder learners using global coursebooks from acquiring the ability to discuss serious matters with ease. They will, in contrast, acquire and appreciate the `aspirational content', which is solely about «a lifestyle of comfort and affluence» (Canagarajah, 1999, p. 88).

Investigating the language used in American Kernel Lessons: Intermediate (O'Neil, Yeadon, & Cornelius, 1978), Canagarajah (1999) found out that «the linguistic ideology of the textbook tends to reinforce the dominance of `standard English', by ignoring the existence of indigenous Englishes in the periphery» (p. 88). What this means is that Inner Circle (Kachru, 1985) ELT textbooks ignored the existence of hybrid varieties resulting from the mixture of `standard English' and local languages. However, such an argument could be discussed by the fact that one of the aims of acquiring a foreign language is to preserve communication, which might legitimate the standardisation of codes (Derbel, 2004).

Prodromou (1988) argues that «globally designed textbooks have continued to be stubbornly Anglo-centric: appealing to a world market as they do they cannot by definition draw on local varieties of English» (qtd in Pennycook, 1994, p. 177). Prodromou (1988) explains that this Anglo-centricity is manifested in the focalisation of Anglophone language

varieties in coursebooks and the marginalisation of what Kachru (1985) calls `New Englishes'.

Such arguments point to the possible inadaptability of global ELT textbooks to learners around the world with their diverse learning styles, strategies, cultures, and aspirations (Thornbury & Meddings, 2001). It is in this context that one could understand Tomlinson's (1998) claim that coursebooks «are often regarded as suspect both in terms of their language models and their methodology» (qtd in Ranalli, 2003, p. 4). What is meant by this is that coursebooks are problematic in terms of the language varieties that they offer as a model to learn English and in terms of the assumptions about learning that they adopt.

Using Anglo-American varieties in global coursebooks is considered an item connecting world users of ELT global coursebook, which is part of creating a «one size fits all» (Gray, 2002, p. 166) that is assumed to be relevant, appropriate, and motivating for all users around the globe. For this reason, connectedness in terms of topics and language, although problematic, is considered a principle of global coursebooks and, hence, a feature of «globality», being the end product of globalisation (Schafer, 2007).

The reception of global content in global coursebooks is related to attitudes towards them (Canagarajah, 1999). These attitudes towards coursebooks vary as some researchers highlight their value while others condemn their unsuitable content. Some others can be situated midway in the sense of avoiding total rejection or total idealisation of textbooks.

2.2. The value attached to ELT coursebooks

The value attached to coursebooks will be dealt with in terms of the advantages and disadvantages of these teaching materials through their functions in English language teaching. Understanding the various views as to the necessity (or redundancy) of ELT

coursebooks is informative as it can help appreciate the value attached to them in general. Additionally, the value of the coursebook in teaching is surveyed as the second research question, investigated using a questionnaire, will explore learners' attitudes towards its use. Emphasising the importance of textbooks, Hutchinson and Torres (1994) argue that

[r]ather than denigrating and trying to do away with textbooks, we should recognize their importance in making the lives of teachers and learners easier, more secure and fruitful, and seek a fuller understanding of their use in order to exploit their full potential as agents of smooth and effective change (p. 327).

Hutchinson and Torres (1994) stress the fact that coursebooks are important for learners and teachers, as will be outlined in the following sub-section.

2.2.1. The advantages of coursebooks

Various researchers have documented the advantages of using coursebooks in English language teaching, which could be summed up in two main general benefits; (1) facilitating the job of the teachers and (2) scaffolding learners in their attempt to learn the language.

For instance, Hutchinson and Torres (1994) assert that «[n]o teaching-learning situation, it seems, is complete until it has its relevant textbook» (p. 315). Thus, for Hutchinson and Torres (1994), ELT coursebooks play a central role in the process of learning and it is inevitable to use a coursebook in teaching English.

Indeed, the coursebook is an effective way of organising ELT materials because compiling, sequencing, and grading texts, pictures, and exercises in a coherent textbook is extremely helpful for the English teacher (Tomlinson, 2001). Similarly, the piling up of the materials in one body adds reliability and connection to courses and provides the learners

with ready-made coherent materials that could make their learning progress at a steady pace predictable for them as well as for the teachers (Haycroft, 1998).

Another function of coursebooks is the promotion of learners' autonomy, which means providing them with a good opportunity to rely on themselves through self revision and rehearsal (Richards, n.d). Then, the coursebook is claimed to be of paramount importance both for the learners to revise and for the teachers to prepare their courses (ibid). Richards (n.d) states eight advantages of ELT coursebooks, which will be summarised and explained in this sub-section before discussing them in the following one:

· Providing a coherent syllabus

· Promoting the standardisation of instruction

· Maintaining quality

· Providing a variety of learning resources

· Guiding teaching

· Providing valuable language models and input

· Training teachers

· Motivating learners

First, coursebooks provide «a structure and a syllabus for a program» (Richards, n.d, p. 1), which is important as learners are better helped when they could go back to a concrete reference that contains content relevant to the syllabus. Second, «[Textbooks] help standardize instruction» (ibid) in the sense of providing all learners regardless of their group of study with the same content, which is important specifically for better administration. Third, «they maintain quality» (ibid), that is providing learners with tested, theory-based, and graded material. Publishers of global coursebooks claim that these qualities are manifested in global coursebooks.

Fourth, «they provide a variety of learning resources» (Richards, n.d, p. 1) when they are supplemented with other novel motivating resources such as CDs and workbooks. In fact, supplementary materials are very helpful as they provide relevant homework activities that meet various learning styles. Fifth, «they are efficient» (ibid) as they are time and energy preservers for teachers who could as a result keep focused on how to help learners learn not on what to use as materials. Hence, the coursebook acts as a means of facilitating the job of the teacher.

Sixth, «they can provide effective language models and input» (Richards, n.d, p. 2) especially for EFL teachers who speak English as a second language. Seventh, «they can train teachers» (ibid), as a `good' coursebook could help beginner teachers find their way in the profession of teaching on the basis of previously checked materials. Finally, Richards (ibid) states that coursebooks are «visually appealing» in the sense of attracting learners' motivation, which serves effective learning. These functions fulfilled by ELT coursebooks legitimate their importance for each learning situation especially for two basic reasons; facilitating the job of the teacher and scaffolding learners.

By the same token, ELT coursebooks are claimed to be the most practical way of providing learners with coherent syllabus (Swales, 1980; O'Neill, 1993; Hutchinson & Torres, 1994; Harmer, 2001; Toms, 2004). The coursebook explored in this study Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars, 2003) is used at IBLV with adult learners. In this context H/I represents a good frame for the learners and teachers to guarantee coverage of content. However, coursebooks are not merely considered sources of input of a benign nature for both learners and teachers as their content can be interpreted differently by the end users regardless of the authors' intentions.

Because textbooks have always been approached from a utilitarian perspective, the ideological dimension is generally down-played and even missed out. This means that it is possible that teachers and adult learners at IBLV might see the coursebook they use as a necessary source of language input for them that they give little attention to the ideologically-loaded or offensive content.

2.2.2. The disadvantages of coursebooks

The value of the coursebook as an indispensable component of the language teaching operation in educational contexts is questioned by some scholars such as Thornbury and Meddings (2001) who contested that a learner does not need a coursebook.

Maybe other subjects - like geography or history, or mathematics - do need textbooks, but we're not sure that language does. For a start, language is not a subject - it is a medium. Giving language subject status by basing the teaching of it around books is a sure way of paralyzing its capacity to convey messages (parag. 4).

Thus, considering language as a medium of communication, there is no need for intervening in the process. Indeed, Thornbury and Meddings (2001) are suggesting approaching language differently in educational institutions by separating it from subjects taught using coursebooks as it is not a subject but a medium. They argue that among the drawbacks of coursebooks are their embodiment of cultural values and their distortion of preferred learning strategies and styles effective with particular learners. They claim also that the problem of coursebooks is that they are designed for tremendously different users.

[Textbooks] have subtexts - the dissemination of cultural and educational values that may have little to do with the needs of the learner of English as an International Language - and may even serve to "undermine the alternative styles of thinking, learning, and interacting preferred by local communities" (Thornbury and Meddings, 2001, parag. 5, italics in original).

Thornbury and Meddings (2001) condemn textbooks for two reasons. First, they consider textbooks to incorporate hidden ideologies, or what they called `subtexts', that could be irrelevant to diverse learners around the world. Second, they contend that textbooks might impose alien learning styles and distort locally preferred strategies effective with particular learners.

However, every discourse is loaded with culture (Wardough, 1989) and it is impossible to learn a language without learning the culture inherent in it (Valdes, 1991, p. 20). This issue will be focus of section 2.3.

With reference to English language textbooks, Canagarajah (1999) contends that the situations the textbooks provide represent only western norms of communication and, especially in role-playing, the dialogues «confront students with certain cultural biases regarding appropriate language use» (p. 86). Moreover, although he states that EFL coursebooks do not overtly promote a particular ideology, Rinvolucri (1999) asserts that «UK EFL writers' topic choice and treatment is powerfully ideological, precisely because of its avoidance of any specific ideological statement» (p. 7). Viney (2000) replied criticising Rinvolucri's (1999) stance by arguing that it is an ambiguous philosophical position to say that UK EFL coursebooks are ideological because they do not contain an ideology. It seems to be worth noting that if every textbook is bound to contain culture and ideology (Valdes,

1991; Rinvolucri, 1999), learners' perception of these problematic issues are also bound to be considered in the design as well as the selection of coursebooks.

Additionally, Thornbury and Meddings' (2001) criticism of coursebooks covers even what coursebooks are assumed to be `good' at; that, is activities. They argue, in fact, that these activities are nothing but «passivities, serving merely to put words into [learners'] mouths rather than serving as vehicles for the communication of their own meanings» (parag. 8, italics in original). What is meant by this position is that coursebooks deprive teachers from investing the lives of the learners in teaching, which is highly important for effective learning, by basing the teaching on non-interesting mechanical pre-identified drills (Swain, 1992). Swain (1992) emphasises the importance of stimulating rather than simulating in the sense that it is more important if the teacher starts from learners' own experiences.

In response to the claims about the importance of coursebooks in providing a coherent syllabus, Thornbury and Meddings' (2001) state ironically that «[c]oursebook syllabuses have about as much relation to learning processes as the night sky does to whether you will be healthy, wealthy or wise» (parag. 9). This position from Thornbury and Meddings' (2001) is labelled by Harwood (2005) a «strong view [advocating] the abandonment of all commercial materials per se» (p. 150).

In fact, there is no clear cut evidence that learners learn exactly in the same order and at the tempo presented in coursebooks (Thornbury & Meddings, 2001), which weakens the idea that ELT coursebooks are advantageous for providing a coherent syllabus that correlates with learning processes. It is for this reason that Thornbury and Meddings' (2001) condemn the use of coursebooks and suggest using other materials such as real books, magazines, and newspaper.

The coursebook is sometimes considered the syllabus by learners and teachers (Harwood, 2005, p. 152). While this misunderstanding is, evidently, the result of learners' ignorance of ELT pedagogy, teachers consider the coursebook as the syllabus in order to make their job easier regardless of the limitations of coursebooks to deal with the needs of their specific learners and regardless of the content of the material (Block, 1991; Howard & Major, 2004). This claim is also illustrated in Apple's (1989) confession that «in most cases [the coursebook] (...) becomes the `real curriculum'» (p. 282).

In addition, it is argued that total reliance on the coursebook «removes initiative and power from teachers» (Tomlinson, 2001) as a result of promoting what could be termed a `wild' understanding of the idea of learner autonomy. In fact, promoting learner autonomy to the extent of marginalising the teacher could hinder them from receiving a coherent and relevant syllabus that is distinct from the coursebook. Talking about the inconvenience of not separating the syllabus from the coursebook Toms (2004) argues that «to allow a General English coursebook to serve as de facto syllabus is to short change our students. It is to do them, and ourselves, a grave disservice» (parag. 16, italics in original).

Syllabuses are expected to be designed for specific learners while coursebooks, especially commercial ones, like the coursebook explored in the present study, are designed to meet the needs of target audiences that are as diverse as learners around the globe (Thornbury, 2002; Hill, 2005). As put by Toms (2004), «A General English coursebook will not, cannot, and should not take the place of a syllabus designed to meet the specific needs of specific learners in a specific situation» (parag. 12).

McGrath (2006) investigated, using metaphors, views as to coursebooks. One of the viewpoints of learners was that a coursebook is «an angry barking dog that frightens me in a language I don't understand». Such a view shows the inconveniency of using inauthentic

language. Exploring learners' attitudes towards the coursebook they use is important to understand the way they perceive it. This issue will be covered in the present study as part of answering the second research question.

The present study has similarity with a study conducted by Bashogh (1993) who, investigating the way language, neutrality, and ideology are addressed in three major ELT coursebooks discourse critically, found that

[T]extbooks idealise communication as involving social equals with little regard for inequality or struggles faced by learners [which makes them] a medium of market ideology with little attempt to develop critical language awareness on the part of the textbook user (p. 3).

Such finding shows how the content of ELT global coursebooks could be distorted as a result of trying to find compromises that fit global audiences. An ironical, but expressive, picture about the contradiction between the reality of the learners and the reality invested in ELT global coursebooks is the one drawn by Canagarajah (1999). Canagarajah (1999) criticised Sri Lankan teachers' use of the American Kernel (O'Neil, Yeadon, & Cornelius, 1978) coursebook which reflects only western middle class life while the Sri Lankan government aircrafts are attacking Tamil Tigers outside the classrooms.

Canagarajah (1999) calls for making the content of ELT materials closer to the everyday situations of particular local learners by investing in users' own local worries and aspirations. The point seems to be that authenticity, in the Sri Lankan context, contradicts the principles of providing `aspirational content' and the guidelines of avoiding politics (Gray, 2002) in the content of global coursebooks.

For Nunan (1985) authenticity is the use of materials that are not designed essentially for language teaching (qtd in Nunan, 1988, p. 99). Martinez (2002) documents nine advantages for authentic content that are summarised below:

· Exposure to real everyday language

· Informing learners about current events

· Diversifying tasks, materials, and topics

· Encouraging incidental learning

Martinez's (2002) advantages of content authenticity suggest it as an indispensable principle to be taken into consideration when designing ELT coursebooks viewing its importance in providing real input, cultivating, and motivating learners (Kilickaya, 2004b).

However, authenticity could be considered a problematic notion, as what is authentic for a group of learners, textbook writers, and teachers in a particular place may not be so for other learners in regions as diverse as five continents. This fact challenges the claims about the «globality» of global ELT coursebooks.

Authenticity in content could be understood as the use of topics, images, and tasks directly and purely taken from real life of a given speech community regardless of cultural appropriacy problems (Martinez, 2002; kilickaya, 2004b). However, authenticity could not be absolute in global coursebooks as there are other principles to take into consideration such as avoiding inappropriacy and preserving inclusivity, which are to be dealt with subsequently. For example, cohabitation is authentic but its use is inappropriate for some cultures (Phillipson, 1992; Viney, 2000). This means that mentioning the issue of cohabitation is controversial for some cultures although «authentic» in the sense of being part of real life in many societies.

In order to avoid the drawbacks of `authenticity', textbook writers eliminate problematic aspects or whatever may be considered inappropriate (Gray, 2002). This was known as sanitisation of content, which means publishers' attempt to produce politically correct coursebooks that are as empty as possible of controversial references (Toms, 2004). This issue will be dealt with in section 2.3.

As a conclusion, coursebooks are documented to be beneficial and at the same time disadvantageous for learners and learning especially for cultural reasons, which is the main concern of this study. For this reason the place of culture in global coursebooks will be explored in the following section.

2.3. Culture in the global coursebook

Culture is a very sensitive issue in global coursebooks because of global cultural diversity and sometimes contradiction (Alptekin, 1993; Viney, 2000), which makes defining it a difficult task (Holliday, 2005). This section will encompass three main sub-sections dealing respectively with defining culture, cultural appropriacy, and the question of the investment of target language culture in coursebooks.

2.3.1. Defining culture

The problem of defining culture, for Holliday (2005), is that it is related to how to frame it (p. 17). For him it is a fallacy to think of culture as deterministically related to geography to the extent that every country, region, or continent has a distinct autonomous culture. He claims that the danger in such understanding of the notion of culture is that it might lead to reductionism and stereotyping (p. 18). One illustration of this claim is Said's (1993) assertion that, despite the complexities of the Middle East region, it is reduced in the west to the notion of Islam.

Kramsch (1998) defines culture as «a membership in a discourse community that shares a common social space and history, and a common system of standards for perceiving, believing, evaluating, and action» (p. 127). The matter, then, concerns the way particular groups perceive the world, which is, in the case of ELT coursebooks, highly important as it decides the acceptance or resistance of particular communities to their content (Prodromou, 1988; Alptekin, 1993; Canagarajah, 1999).

In the same vein, Wardhaugh (1992) advocates that culture contains what a particular person needs to know in order to act appropriately according to the norms of their particular community. The emphasis, hence, is on the particularity of cultural norms (Flowerdew & Miller, 1995, p. 345). Such a particularity of cultural norms represent an obstacle for publishers of global coursebooks, as it challenges their potential of designing globally accepted materials without running into culturally sensitive issues of people all around the globe.

2.3.2. Cultural appropriacy

The exploration of (in)appropriacy is important because it reveals publishers' concern to produce «appropriate» coursebooks that could sell internationally (Viney, 2000; Gray, 2002). The end product of this attention to what is globally inappropriate could be related to the notion of «globality», being the product of the process labelled globalisation (Schafer, 2007). In this context researchers talked about the notion of inapropriacy that is to be avoided in global coursebooks (Viney, 2000; Gray, 2002, Dellar, 2006). Hence, the next sub-section will tackle the definition of inappropriacy before exploring trials of avoiding it in global coursebooks.

2.3.2.1. Defining inappropriacy

Inappropriacy concerns efforts made by coursebook writers, and behind them publishers, to deal only with what Renner (1997) and Gray (2002) call `safe topics' by avoiding terms and issues perceived as culturally offending for some potential users around the globe (Dellar, 2006) or even non-aspirational. With regard to «safe topics», Rinvolucri (1999) argues that coursebook writers deliberately avoid some real-life topics as «[a]mbition, rage, jealousy, betrayal, destiny, greed, fear and the other Shakespearian themes [which] are far from the soft, fudgey sub-journalistic, woman's magaziney world of EFLese course materials» (p. 7). The reason behind this sanitised content is, for Gray (2002), the guidelines that the publishers impose on coursebook writers.

Examples of inappropriate, or politically incorrect, cultural terms and topics are found in Gray (2002) who calls them PARSNIPs (an acronym referring respectively to politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms, and pork). The assumption behind the avoidance of these topics is that they are inappropriate for many cultures.

In fact, culturally unacceptable issues vary across the world and what is perceived to be taboo or problematic in one culture may be normal, in the sense of being accepted, in other cultures (Alptekin, 1993). Interviewing the publishers of Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 1996), Gray (2002) found that other examples of inappropriate issues that are to be avoided in ELT global coursebooks include «anarchy, Aids, Israel and six pointed stars, genetic engineering, terrorism, and violence» (p. 159).

Gray (2002) detected a tendency that some of the above-mentioned inappropriate topics are avoided through the investigation of the content of a coursebook as well as through the guidelines imposed by publishers. The guidelines consisted in every topic that the publishers

perceived as upsetting and controversial for their potential global users such as political and ethical matters.

2.3.2.2. On avoiding inappropriacy in global coursebooks

For seemingly cultural reasons publishers impose on ELT coursebook writers a list of topics and issues to be avoided (Viney, 2000; Gray, 2002). This claim is attested by Viney

(2000) who himself is a coursebook writer. In a reply to an article written by ^Rinvolucri(1999), in which he strongly criticised ELT coursebooks, Viney (2000) contended that
publishers provide coursebook authors with guidelines to be followed. One of the guidelines
in the Heinemann Guide for Authors (1991) dealing with inappropriacy is quoted in Viney
(2000).

Due to the sensitivity of some of the markets for which we produce books, we have to be very careful about the topics which we cover. Obviously when producing books for the UK and Northern European markets most subjects are acceptable, but in more conservative and religious markets there are various things we must be careful with. The list below should be used as a guideline but please do discuss any topics you feel strongly about using with your editor (parag. 29).

Viney (2000) states that the list «includes abuse, aids, narcotics, terrorism, disputed borders, sex, rape, religion, pornography» (parag. 30). The concurrence of this list in ELT coursebooks could show the accentuation of «globality», by focusing on controversial and problematic issues. Interestingly, for the publishers and coursebook authors, the more inappropriate topics are avoided in a textbook, the more it is likely to be considered `global' (Bronner, 2002). However, trying to cater for a world audience and at the same time avoiding

to offend a world audience could result in what Gray (2002) calls «sanitisation of content» (p. 166) that aims at making the coursebook politically correct (ibid). Dendrinos (1992) explored this issue too and concluded similarly that sanitisation of content based primarily on trivialisation of topics and opting instead for advertising and comedy is an observable characteristic of ELT global coursebooks.

Hence, it can be argued the cultural diversity of the world represents a challenge to the mono-ethnic mono-cultural content issues peculiar to the target language culture invested in coursebooks. This issue will be explored in the following sub-section that concerns the necessity and at the same time the possible cultural inappropriacy of investing target language culture in global coursebooks.

2.3.3. Investing target language culture in ELT coursebooks

Target language culture, called also L2 culture (Kramsh, 1993; Thanasoulas, 2001), refers to the lifestyle related in the context of global ELT coursebooks to «native speakers» of English (Derbel & Richards, 2007). As will be shown afterwards, teaching target culture is claimed to be important for learners (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999; Thanasoulas, 2001).

Viewing the particularity characteristic of Anglo-American culture(s), they are bound to be different and even to contradict the cultural norms of diverse world cultures (Alptekin & Alptekin, 1984). The example Alptekin (1993) provides illustrates this claim as he argues that «while a child from the Anglo-American world will normally think of a dog as `man's best friend', Middle Eastern children are likely to perceive it as dangerous and dirty» (p. 136). This statement is at best problematic if not downright racist as the author could have evoked that in Middle East culture «a dog» stands for fidelity as well.

No doubt, the contradiction Alptekin (1993) illustrates could create opposition to the material itself or even to learning a foreign language. Canagarajah (1999) addresses such possible resistance to cultural content manifested, for example, in ideological icons presented in American Kernel Lessons: Intermediate (O'Neil, Yeadon, & Cornelius, 1978). In his study, learners in Sri Lanka Tamil showed resistance to this content by vandalising the coursebook through drawing images or changing the dialogues in it, to load it with their particular local concerns related to independence from Sri Lanka (Canagarajah, 1999, p. 90). Both of Alptekin (1993) and Canagarajah (1999) target the ideological (including the cultural) mismatch that could exist as a result of cultural difference. The existence of such a resistance to target language culture is an obstacle not only towards publishers' desired «globality» but also to learners' need to be aware of target culture items. Illustrating this importance, Alptekin (1993) asserts that

a learner of English who has never lived in the target-language culture will most likely be confronted with problems, as far as the English language system is concerned, if the English systemic data [i.e. knowledge of the formal properties of a language] are presented through such unfamiliar contexts as, say, Halloween or English pubs (p. 136).

Alptekin (1993) stresses the fact that unfamiliar cultural content makes language inaccessible to learners from different cultures due to the difference in schematic knowledge. He states that while a pub is a place for socialising as far as native speakers of English are concerned, for some societies it is not linked with the same background knowledge (Rochman, 2007).

Culture, it is claimed, is a very influencing factor on learning especially for foreign language learners who come to the English class with their previously acquired knowledge that they learnt while learning L1. It is from this perspective that investing target language culture content in ELT coursebooks detracts world learners from learning effectively.

In fact, some researchers question the feasibility of ignoring culture in ELT (Valdes, 1991). For example, Valdes (1991) asserts that «there is no way to avoid teaching culture when teaching language» (p. 20) as they are interconnected to the extent that «culture itself penetrates all the corners of language education» (p. 29). However, Valdes (1991) links the investment of culture in teaching language with appropriacy, as he suggests that «[i]f [culture] cannot be escaped, it seems obvious that every teacher and every learner should be alerted to it and should make the most of it, to use it as a tool [for learning language] where appropriate (italics mine, ibid).

Rampton (1990) highlights the necessity of teaching target language culture and goes as far as claiming that ignoring it when teaching a foreign language means promoting cross-cultural misunderstanding. Therefore, excluding culture from ELT coursebooks could produce learners with `understanding disorders', a problem that seems similar to the situation described in Elwood (2004):

[c]oming to a foreign country reminds me of starting to watch a movie from the middle. Starting in the middle, we don't understand the story and we don't know the characters. It takes a while to understand what's going on. Sometimes we think we understand, but then we realize that our interpretation was wrong. It can be confusing and even frustrating. If we ask someone who has watched the movie to explain, his or her explanation may be too complicated, or on the other hand, it may be too simple (p. 92).

Using coursebooks that are empty of target language culture, therefore, confuses learners and hinders their effective learning. However, the target culture is bound to contain culture-specific elements, which are at odd with some markets of the global coursebook (Alptekin, 1993; Canagarajah, 1999; Viney, 2000). Talking about this issue, Ellis (1990) argues that global coursebooks do not give enough consideration for not offending Muslims in the content. Areas where this insensitivity figures according to Pennycook (1994) are

social interactions between men and women, including living together, advertising for boy girlfriends in personal ads (a favourite of textbook writers), and holiday romances; social setting, often `boy meets girl' setting and the drinking of alcohol [which] are all discordant with Islamic norms; and other topics such as rock music, astrology, gambling, and revealing clothes (miniskirts, off-the-shoulder gowns, swim-suits) which all pose problems to Muslim audiences (p. 177).

These inappropriate cultural items mentioned in ELT global coursebooks present an obstacle to the «globality» of the coursebook as they could be, in contradiction to the schematic knowledge of world audience and at the root of learners' resistance to them (Canagarajah, 1999).

Schematic knowledge refers to the knowledge acquired from society while systemic data is knowledge of the formal properties of language (Carrel, 1981; Alptekin, 1993). It is argued that learning the language is difficult to happen without accessing the cultural practices related to that language (Kachru, 1985; Widdowson, 1990; Hyde, 1994). An example that illustrates this claim is that learners of a foreign language face problems when

attempting to read materials if they do not have access to the cultural background related to that foreign language (Alptekin, 1993). Carrell (1981) argues that in order for comprehension to take place, the text is bound to contain the suitable cognitive schemata, as L2 learners are more likely to understand the text if it contains a theme that is familiar for them (qtd in AlIssa, 2006, p. 43).

Additionally, Winfield and Barnes-Felfeli (1982) conducted a study focusing on learners' ability to recall information from two texts one about Don Quixote and the other about Japanese Noh theatre. The participants were ten Hispanics and ten mixed group comprising Arabic, Navaho, Hebrew, Greek, and other non-native speakers of English. The main finding of Winfield and Barnes-Felfeli (1982) was that Hispanic speakers did much better than the others in recalling information about Don Quixote, which permitted the researchers to conclude that being familiar with the theme helps fluency.

Absence of «content schemata» (Al-Issa, 2006, p. 41), which is familiarity with the topic or the theme, could result in what Wallace (1988) calls lack of «cultural competence» (qtd in Rochman, 2007), which is learners' knowledge of beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviours of the target language culture. This fact hardens the attempt of coursebook writers to produce an «appropriate» content.

The development of this cultural competence is perceived to be reduced because of publishers' guidelines concerning avoiding inappropriate items (Viney, 2000; Gray, 2002). These guidelines are not specific to one culture but as diverse as the diversity of world communities. Viney (2000) summarises these restrictions on content or visual representation:

Pictures of people with cigarettes can get books banned in some school systems. Low
cleavage in pictures gets them banned in others. Inadequate ethnic balancing is a serious

problem in the USA. Representation of women will be analysed and counted in many countries. Some countries don't like to see disputed territories labelled on maps. You could have a section on holidays in Gibraltar, Israel, The Falklands and Taiwan and get effectively banned in several countries with one unit (parag. 18).

This quote from Viney (2000) depicts the controversy faced by coursebook writers in their attempt to cater for world audiences (Bashogh, 2003). It seems that this is the price to pay in order to reach «globality». Making compromises is essential for the global coursebook to be marketable globally (Riches, 1999; Bashogh, 2003). However, the question is how far the writers of global coursebooks could go in their attempt to please every group of prospective textbook users around the globe.

To conclude, it could be said that incorporating the target language culture in global ELT coursebooks is necessary but sometimes inappropriate. An important issue that is worth exploring in the questionnaire of this study is local learners' perception of the possibility of inappropriate target language culture themes in global coursebooks and the extent to which there is a match between their perception and the real content.

In addition to the problem of appropriate cultural content in global coursebooks, the issue of representation of minorities seems to cause textbook writers and publishers similar dilemmas. The upcoming section explores representation of social classes and the issues surrounding it in global textbooks.

2.4. The issue of representation in ELT textbooks

Generally, the term «representation» refers to the reproduction of reality to present it in a different shape (Said, 1978). An example that Said (1978) provides to argue for this definition is the image that the West drew for the Orient to legitimate the invasion of the

Middle East. Examining the relationship between power and representation, he contends that the importance of the term «representation» lies in the fact that it is used to reshape reality in order to gain imperial interests and to sustain Western domination. For instance, Said (1985) contends that the West denies the continuous change characterising the situation of the Orient presenting this latter in fixed stereotypical representations while tolerating continuously changing interpretations of Shakespeare works, for example (p. 92).

The production of Western ideologically biased representations of the Orient, resulted in what Said (1978) called «orientalism», which is «fundamentally a political doctrine» (p. 204) developed by scholars who studied the Orient and behind them politicians to maintain the subordination of the Orient to the West. However, critics of Said's (1978) Orientalism argue that it is an ideologically oriented work encompassing poisonous ideas (Prakash, 1995, p. 199). Such an accusation Said (1985) has already noted that it is itself orientalist, which is a term he used to refer to opponents of scholars' stabilisation of the representation of the Orient in a particular image that serves the interests of the West (p. 93).

Hence, exploring the possible ideological orientations behind the representation of cultures and minorities in a way or another is essential in the study of their inclusivity. For Said (1978), all artefacts including media, literature, and paintings are never neutral due to the impossibility of dissociating them from the producer. Similarly, the textbook as a cultural artefact was considered to be difficult to divorce from its writers' and publishers' ideology (Phillipson, 1992; Rinvolucri, 1999).

In this study, the issue of representation will be tackled with reference to the image of minorities, which is a concern that emerged with modern ELT coursebooks (Renner, 1997). The minorities surveyed for evidence as to their representation in ELT coursebooks are women, class, gays and lesbians, and age. Preserving the inclusivity of minorities in the ELT

global coursebook is not a mere statement of the existence of these groups but also a question of representing them in an «appropriate» way. Indeed, Arikan (2005) argues that there are two types of representation in coursebooks; apparent inclusivity and subtle imbalance.

2.4.1. Defining «inclusivity»

Inclusivity as stated by Gray (2002) and Renner (1997) means the tendency and/or attempt to include and represent all members of society such as women, age, class, ethnic origin, and so on in ELT global coursebooks. As explained by Gray (2002), this principle is generally carefully handled by publishers and coursebook writers (p. 158). In fact, publishers attempt to preserve inclusivity through adopting pressure groups recommendations. The examples of the concern of publishers in including social classes will be dealt with in the following section.

2.4.2. Explanations of inclusivity

Various explanations have been provided to illustrate the tendency in textbooks towards preserving inclusivity of different world images. There are objective and ideological explanations to this.

2.4.2.1. Objective explanations

Such explanations are termed objective due to their connection with social awareness especially with regard to representing groups of societies in `good' light. Example of these objective explanations are the ones provided by Gray (2002) who attributes the satisfactory representation of women in ELT coursebooks by the pressure exerted by feminist pressure groups. Gray (2002) claims that «[s]uch a state of affairs is largely the result of efforts made by groups like Women in TEFL and Women in EFL Materials» (p. 157). In the same vein, Sunderland (1994) argues that the group of Women in EFL Materials have provided

publishers of ELT coursebooks with a set of guidelines concerning the representation of women entitled «On Balance: Guidelines for Representation of Women and Men in English Language Teaching Materials» (qtd in Gray, 2002, p. 157).

Closely related to this argument is that misrepresenting women, ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities in ELT coursebooks could inhibit these minorities from learning effectively (Gray, 2002, p. 158). Illustrating this need for «good» representation, one could state Rifkin's (1998) argument that «the exclusion of girls and women from FL textbooks may seriously impair their abilities to understand the target language and its culture» (p. 218).

The argument of the need to reflect a `good' and `real' picture of the status of women in coursebooks as recommended by publishers is questioned by Gray (2002) who argues that the publishers are submissive to the pressure that feminist groups exert (p. 159). Publishers, then, are highly sensitive to avoiding any disagreement with powerful pressure groups in society and abroad in order to preserve the profitable circulation of their product (Viney, 2000).

Apart from these objective arguments concerning preserving inclusivity, some critical researchers talked about the ideological load inherent in global coursebooks presenting it as the reason behind ethnocentric representation of inner circle images (Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1994).

2.4.2.2. Ideological explanations

It is secret to no one that ELT materials sold all over the globe do not disseminate only language but also culture (Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1994; Canagarajah, 1999; Alptekin, 2002). As cultures are not the same all over the world, the promotion of the purely British or

American perspective toward society through ELT could be seen as an act of cultural imperialism, being the use of unequal resources, like ELT, to guarantee the hegemony of particular cultures at the expense of the others (Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1994). Such view correlates with the one advocated by Said (1978) on representation. In the same vein, Renner (1997) contends that the

(...) cultural content is rarely, if ever, reflective of the learners' cultural setting, but rather promotes cultural imperialism for both Great Britain and the United States as ideals to be aimed for with little or no critical reflection on the grave short comings (sic) both cultures have (pp. 3-4).

From Renner's (1997) position, one could deduce that, for example, the promotion of a particular image of women, regardless of the «good will» that could underlie it, is a kind of cultural invasion as it is propagated along with ELT coursebooks around the globe. Such a position was heavily addressed by researchers writing from critical perspective to applied linguistics such as Phillipson (1992), Pennycook (1994), Rinvolucri (1999), and Canagarajah (1999). In fact, exploring whether learners resist cultural content, as explained by Canagarajah (1999), or accept it, is important for the understanding of the target population and for learning to be effective.

In the same vein, Renner (1997) presents the inclusiveness that the publishers try to ensure in ELT coursebooks as an act of cultural globalisation. As he put it:

The «inclusiveness» of other cultures, ethnic groups, lands, and customs presented in EFL
ESL texts for the international market is controlled however by the cultural norms of a

liberal economic ethic and often promotes the «globalization» of the liberal-democratic culture (p. 4).

Hence, underneath the representation of people and settings, in a way or another, whether positively or negatively, raises questions about whether these representations are innocent or malignant (Said, 1978; Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1994; Canagarajah, 1999).

With reference to the primary concern of this study, which is exploring the features that make an ELT coursebook global, it could be said that the principle of inclusivity, if practical and attainable, is a manifestation of the notion of «globality». The inclusion of various groups in the content of ELT coursebooks designed for world audience could be seen as one of the stages towards «fair» representation of communities constituting the globe. However, in a world containing very numerous and different communities, one wonders about the ability of ELT coursebooks to represent them in a fair way without using the image of some communities in the context of talking about inappropriate situations. In this context, important questions concern whether inappropriate (but «authentic») situations are to be dealt with or not and with which characters from which communities (Viney, 2000).

It seems again that there can be conflict between the three principles, investing connectedness, avoiding inappropriacy, and preserving inclusivity, which hardens publishers' attempt to make successful compromises in order not to lose markets (Bashogh, 1993, p. 5). In spite of such compromises, some unresolved issues concerning inclusivity still exist, as some researchers detected attempts of representing members of societies «properly» while others showed that «proper» inclusivity is not always achievable.

2.4.3. Attempts of preserving inclusivity

In his investigation of Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars, 1996), Gray (2002) detected a tendency to include people and situations from around the world. As he put it, «[a] modern coursebook like New Headway / Intermediate (1996), while still a very British book, is much less exclusively located in Britain» (italics in original, p. 157). This means that, in general, the book writers attempted to be inclusive in the sense of showing awareness of the need to include images from the entire world in global coursebooks, not only British ones. Thus, integrating images and situations from around the globe gives the coursebook a global outlook.

Using a checklist that focused on representation of women, age, and social class, Arikan (2005) investigated the visual materials representing people in Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) and Think ahead to First Certificate (Naunton, 1993) and concluded that

the majority of the visual materials in these coursebooks represent the middle class social strata composed of the middle aged individuals in a way that the numbers of both genders represented seem to be similar. However, the critical study of the discursive practices making up these images unearth (sic) the fact that there are many imbalances in such representations (p. 35).

Arikan (2005) claims that there are two kinds of representation in the investigated coursebooks; apparent inclusivity and hidden (or subtle) imbalance. To illustrate this point, Arikan (2005) provided data concerning the social classes of the human images in Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars, 2003) using the content analysis method. He found that the

`middle' class is the class represented in 84.44% of the total number of human images in the coursebook. Such visibility of the middle class was at the expense of representing other classes such as the `lower' class, mentioned only in 2.2% of the images.

As for the lower classes, Arikan (2005) claims that they are «represented through individuals from the third world except for those who are eccentric individuals living in the U.S. or the U.K» (p. 37). An example of what Arikan (2005) identified as an eccentric individual from the West is the portrait of a young man on page 83 funnily pretending to be a Hollywood star, which is the only picture of a lower class individual not belonging to «the third world».

It could be stated, then, that the inclusion of some groups of society in the coursebook Arikan (2005) investigated is misleading, as while minorities were represented (manifested in the inclusion of third world people), they are represented in an inappropriate manner (only lower class people). This is, in fact what is meant by subtle imbalance. Another illustration of what Arikan (2005) calls subtle imbalance in the representation of minorities concerns the representation of women. Arikan (2005) claims also that the number of female humans in the images of Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) and Think Ahead to First Certificate (Naunton, 1993) represents only 29.80% of the total 302 images, which shows under-representation of women (Arikan, 2005, p. 36).

Therefore, Gray's (2002) assertion that «the most cursory look at a selection of modern global coursebooks produced in the UK shows that [misrepresentation of women] is no longer the case» (p. 157) seems to be incorrect. Actually, Gray (2002) does not provide evidence to illustrate his claim. Based on the findings of Arikan (2005), a possible refinement of Gray's (2002) statement is that misrepresentation of minorities seems to have moved from being clearly visible to being subtly hidden (Arikan, 2005, p. 36).

Additionally, Mineshima (2008) analysed the content of a Japanese ELT coursebook Birdland Oral Communication I (Yoshida et al., 2007) for evidence as to the issue of gender representation. She used qualitative and quantitative analyses of the representation of language and pictures in the textbook and found that

(...) there seems to be ample evidence to suggest that the textbook examined in this study exhibits fairly egalitarian representations of the two genders. It has succeeded in maintaining a generally well-balanced proportion of females to males in text and pictures, and in describing both genders in a variety of personalities and interests, emphasizing multiformity of individuals regardless of their gender (p. 16).

For Mineshima (2008) coursebook writers are successful in being inclusive as far as the issue of gender is concerned. However, what is interesting to note is that this claimed balance may be counter to prevailing cultural values. This could mean that besides teaching the language, coursebook writers may end up also promoting cultural values that are different from «native» Japanese ones. This could raise the issue of cultural imperialism, especially for critical readers, viewing that two native speakers were among the authors of the coursebook investigated by Mineshima (2008).

As far as being culturally inclusive in EFL materials, Renner (1997) comments that modern ELT coursebooks reflect rather than ignore native cultures. He claims that «books now produced for the international market include a variety of realia taken from native and non-native speaking countries reflecting diversity of the native culture» (p. 2). This quote shows that publishers are sensitive to representing various images from around the world in modern coursebooks. However, it remains unclear how and to what extent different local

cultures are represented in coursebooks produced in the Inner Circle (Kachru, 1985). Such issue will be one of concern of the content analysis of Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) reported in Chapter Four.

In the following sub-section instances of the failure of publishers to cater for the issue of inclusivity will be dealt with.

2.4.4. Unresolved issues

The unresolved issues concerned instances of failure in representing women, gays and lesbians, age, and class «appropriately» in ELT coursebooks.

The first surveys that investigated inclusivity of some members of particular societies in ELT coursebooks focused on the representation of women (Hill, 1980; Porreca, 1984). Gray (2002) commented, for instance, that women in earlier textbooks of 1980s were «underrepresented, trivialised and stereotyped in a wide selection of British and North American coursebooks» (Gray, 2002, p. 157). As a result of this misrepresentation, there appeared calls for resolving the issue of women's invisibility in ELT global coursebooks (Renner, 1997; Mineshima, 2008).

An example of misrepresentation of women is sexism, which is «a system of beliefs and practices that affirm the dominance of men over women» (Renner, 1997, p. 6). Carroll and Kowitz (1994) documented the existence of such practices in ELT coursebooks through studying the use of pronouns and adjectives. They found that male pronouns are more frequently used than female ones, the term angry was most of the time used with women, and that the adjectives pretty, busy, and beautiful were used only with women (qtd in Renner, 1997, pp. 2-3). For Renner (1997), this sexism in representing women in earlier ELT coursebooks shows, on the one hand, that there is no successful attempt to be properly

inclusive in depicting women in some coursebooks and, on the other hand, the rising attention to representation in global coursebooks.

Additionally, Cunningsworth (1995) stated, for example, that famous male characters were represented 18 times while female famous characters were mentioned only twice (ibid). Such an imbalance shows that misrepresentation of women moved from being apparent to being subtle or hidden (Cunningsworth, 1995; Wilson, 2005). This does not suggest, however, that coursebook writers plan to misrepresent women. Instead, it highlights the fact that, on the one hand, the linguistic and the cultural contents are striving for a place in coursebooks and that, on the other hand, publishers and writers are trying hard to find acceptable compromises (Bashogh, 1993).

Other groups who are documented not to be included in the content of ELT coursebooks are gays and lesbians. While in the Middle East and Asia mentioning these groups in the content of ELT textbooks is «counter» to cultural values of these societies, in the West it is not the case. Backgrounding these groups is considered to be a promotion of the vision that heterosexuality is, to use Renner's (1997) terminology, «somehow superior to, or more «natural» and «normal» than homosexuality, bisexuality, or lesbianism» (p. 5). This neglect of an authentic and existent social group is considered heterosexist although this issue is closely related to the question of «inappropriacy» (Gray, 2002) of some issues for various cultures. In this example, it could be said that the concern for inclusivity is marginalised for the sake of avoiding inappropriacy.

This is evidence for the compromises (Bashogh, 1993, p. 1) that coursebook writers make in order to cater for a very heterogeneous audience spread all over the world. Homosexuality, meanwhile, is documented to be overtly dealt with in ESL coursebooks

produced in North America (Gray, 2002). However, Thornbury (1999) argues that it is essential for the representation of these groups to be properly addressed in ELT coursebooks.

Social class and the elderly, in turn, are documented to be under-represented in ELT textbooks, which may provide learners with an «inauthentic» picture about life especially contributing to the process of creating stereotypes (Clarke & Clarke, 1991; Cunningsworth, 1995). Investigating the representation of the above stated categories, Cunningsworth (1995) found that elderly people and adults were represented less than teenagers and that women were fairly represented in terms of number but not in terms of the functions fulfilled (qtd in Arikan, 2005, p. 31). This is another instance of the subtle imbalance.

The concern of this thesis is to explore the features of «globality» in the global coursebook and the extent to which publishers' concern in implementing inclusivity, avoiding inappropriacy, as well as investing in connectedness is successful and attainable. This issue is important because it contributes to the literature on the value of global coursebooks as ELT commercial materials were marketed on the assumption that they fit learners all around the globe (Bashogh, 2003).

Conclusion

In conclusion, it could be said that the global coursebook is subject to diverse forces influencing its content. Coursebook writers need not only to concentrate on the linguistic content but also to compromise the cultural content. The exploration of the literature on global coursebooks showed that publishers are compelled to make compromises mainly between three principles of investing in connectedness, avoiding inappropriacy, and preserving inclusivity.

First, regardless of the success in doing so, coursebook writers try to pay attention to what connects people all over the globe when designing the content. Such search for common ground results in «sanitisation of content» (Gray, 2002, p. 166).

Second, coursebook writers may strive, to a certain extent, to avoid what is culturally inappropriate in the coursebooks that they intend to sell internationally. Their attempt to produce a coursebook that is «appropriate» for the world, however, is bound by the need to represent «authentic» aspects of target language culture that may contain inappropriate items for world users.

Third, publishers and coursebook writers attempt to be inclusive in the sense of representing people, cultures, and images from the entire world. A major problem for this attempt is establishing a compromise between inclusivity and «authenticity».

Hence, because of the importance of the cross-cultural in the global, «appropriate» compromising occupies center position. Without this quality, it seems, real «globality» will be impossible to achieve. It is interesting, then, to explore the extent to which an example of global coursebooks is actually reflective of these principles and the perception of learners as to this reflection in an attempt to explore the real «globality» of Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003).

In the following chapter the theoretical foundations of the methods used in this study will be reviewed. Additionally the chapter will contain the methodology used in the analysis of Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) and in the design, collection, and handling of the questionnaire distributed among the learners.

Chapter Three: Methodology of the study

3.0. Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the research methodology design, choice of techniques proper to collection and analysis. This chapter is composed of four sections focusing on the organisation of the study, research methods, the methodology of the content analysis, and the methodology of the questionnaire.

3.1. Organisation of the study

This study is composed of two phases. In Phase I, the coursebook Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) (hereafter H/I) was analysed and its content was discussed in terms of its treatment of the principles of preserving inclusivity, avoiding inappropriacy, and investing in connectedness. In light of the findings of the content analysis concerning these themes, a questionnaire was distributed among 251 learners at IBLV Tunis, in Phase II. Figure 1 clarifies the research process.

Summary of
findings

Phase I

Phase II

Content Analysis

Questionnaire

Results

Results

Conclusion

Conclusion

Figure 1: Research flowchart

This research makes use of the principle of triangulation, which is the diversification of research methods in investigating the same phenomenon (Jick, 1979). The content of H/I will be discussed in light of the literature review while the results of the questionnaire will be discussed in light of the literature review as well as the findings of the content analysis. As the exploration of H/I preceded and guided the design of the questionnaire, the discussion of the findings of the questionnaire was done in a separate chapter. The coursebook chosen for analysis in this study is an example of global coursebooks as an extensively used worldwide in English language teaching (Reda, 2003, p. 261). Arguments concerning the choice of the methods employed in this study will be focus of the following section before describing the details of their implementation in the thesis in sections 3.3. and 3.4..

3.2. Research methods

In this section the focus will be arguing for the choice of methods employed in the study. For this reason this section is composed of three sub-sections dealing respectively with the quantitative / qualitative debate, the content analysis, and the questionnaire.

3.2.1. The quantitative / qualitative debate

Basically there are two recognised ways of collecting data in research, which are the qualitative and the quantitative methods. While the qualitative research method investigates the way particular items are represented, the quantitative research method focuses on the occurrence of some given variables (Jick, 1979). Within each category there are numerous tools. Some researchers highlighted the existence of a debate over the advantages and drawbacks of each method while others insist that such a debate is unproductive, as both methods are different but complementary (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

It seems that at the root of this debate is the inductivity characterising qualitative research in comparison to the deductivity marking quantitative research (Miles & Huberman, 1994). What is meant by this is that in qualitative research there is no need for a pre-identified theory whereas in quantitative research the starting point is setting a hypothesis (ibid). Additionally, it is argued that quantitative research, in opposition to qualitative research, is characterised by researchers' neutrality (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p. 40). In contradiction, others contend that every research is bound to be qualitative in a way or another (ibid). Researchers' participation and subjectivity in qualitative research is one source of the criticism directed towards it, as they may distort the findings (ibid). However, qualitative researchers argue that even quantitative research is not intact from this drawback as the results can be distorted by the context of the study or respondents trying to please the researchers (Marshall & Rossman, 1980). Nevertheless, it seems to be safe to think of these two research methods as complementary (ibid). This complementarity is what drove the researcher to choose one qualitative research tool, the content analysis explored in 3.2.2., and one quantitative research tool, the questionnaire explored in 3.2.3.

3.2.2. The content analysis

Krippendorff (2004) defines content analysis as «a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts (or other meaningful matter) to the contexts of their use (p. 18). This definition shows that the content analysis is based on inferences made from interpretations of the content of texts in light of prescribed research questions. In the same vein, Carley (1990) asserts that content analysis «focuses on the frequency with which words or concepts occur in texts or across texts» (p. 725). Inspired by these definitions of content analysis, the present thesis studies, in its first phase, the extent to which a coursebook

is global with special focus on features of preserving inclusivity, avoiding inappropriacy, and investing in connectedness through analysing the content of H/I.

In fact, the content analysis method is documented to have various advantages such as marrying qualitative and quantitative techniques (Carley, 1990). Therefore, the researcher settled for the content analysis method. What could legitimate this choice is that the content analysis method is reported to be composed mainly of two types that are closely related to the aims of the research questions; Conceptual Analysis and Relational Analysis (Carley, 1990).

As far as conceptual analysis is concerned, it is the study of the occurrence of some items, words, phrases, or themes in the content of a book, newspaper, conversation, or any type of text (Carley, 1990; Neuendorf, 2002). Furthermore, it is worth noting that Conceptual Analysis detects only the frequency of presence of the themes investigated with reference to the research questions without studying the relation between them. This is rather the concern of Relational Analysis (Neuendorf, 2002).

In a detailed study of the content analysis method and its conceptual, referential, and procedural tools, Neuendorf (2002) provides eight steps for Conceptual Analysis.

· First, researchers need to choose the level of analysis by, for example, specifying whether the concern will be words or phrases.

· Second, they need to determine the amount of word to be coded, which means deciding whether to code every word or just the ones the researchers think are relevant.

· Third, they need to decide whether coding will be for just the mention of the investigated themes or the frequency of their existence.

· Fourth, they need to specify the way of distinguishing between words to be coded,

which means whether the derivations, for instance, of the same word will be coded under the same or different category.

· Fifth, researchers are invited to determine the rules of coding mainly in the sense of being consistent when deciding the exact category of an item.

· Sixth, they need to decide the way of handling irrelevant data such as the articles `the', `a', or `an' when counting.

· Seventh, the researchers are allowed to code the text based on the previously determined coding rules.

· And finally, they could analyse the results by drawing possible interpretations and generalisations (ibid).

Because it is based on quantifying the presence of pre-identified items in any given text, as Neuendorf's (2002) eight steps indicate, Conceptual content analysis seems to be limited, as it does not focus on the relations between the explored items. Such investigation of the relations is the concern of another more sophisticated but less used kind of content analysis, which is Relational Analysis (ibid).

Relational Analysis attempts to transcend the mere detection of the existence or mention of the explored items, characterising Conceptual Analysis, to studying the meaning of the relations between them (Carley, 1990; Neuendorf, 2002). Neuendorf (2002) argues that there are also eight steps for conducting Relational Analysis. The first step is identifying the leading question to be handled. After choosing the sample to be analysed, the researcher is invited to determine the relations to be studied and to specify the categories of coding. Exploring the relationships between the concepts precedes coding and statistically handling

them. The final step is transforming the statistics into a map representing the various relations inherent in the concepts investigated (ibid).

As previously stated, the researcher resorted also to using a quantitative research method, which is the questionnaire in order to investigate the perception of the learners as to the issue of «globality» in the global coursebook with H/I as example. The use of the questionnaire, which is a quantitative method, aims at varying research tools in order to benefit from their different advantages (Miles & Huberman, 1994) and because the questionnaire allows the collection of view of relatively large amount of people in short time (Geer, 1991).

3.2.3. The questionnaire

The questionnaire is a research method that enable the direct elicitation of information from respondents basically using two kinds of questions; closed-ended and open-ended questions (Kalton & Schuman, 1982; Geer, 1988).

Closed-ended questions allow the participants to choose from proposed alternatives without adding any other information not suggested by the researcher. This type of questions is advantageous for being quick to be answered, which is important not to lose the motivation of the respondents, and easy to handle (Geer, 1991, p. 360). However, closed-ended questions are reported to be disadvantageous due to the limitation of the prescribed choices that they impose on the respondents (ibid).

Open-ended questions are the kind of questions requiring the respondents to provide answers without being given any alternatives (Geer, 1988), which allows more freedom of expression and neutralises the bias that could exist as a result of offering alternatives (Kalton & Schuman, 1982, p. 49). Nevertheless, this type of questions is criticised for being time

consuming, difficult to code, and for the possibility of misinterpretation of respondents' answers from the part of the researcher (Geer, 1991). In order to benefit from the advantages of both kinds of questions, closed and open were used in the questionnaire (see full description of the questionnaire in section 3.4).

Inspired by literature on the implementation of content analysis method, the researcher developed, in light of the research questions of this study, a personalised framework for analysis of the content of the coursebook explored that will be outlined in details in the following section.

3.3. Methodology of content analysis

This section will encompass the description of the methodology of the content analysis. The analysis was inspired by conceptual analysis while at the same time taking into consideration the first research question (the extent to which the global coursebook is global). The choice of adopting conceptual analysis is based not only on the fact that the study is exploratory in nature but also on the need to investigate representation of the themes of preserving inclusivity, avoiding inappropriacy, and investing in connectedness. Before explaining the procedures of analysis adopted, it is invaluable to define the key terms in the study.

3.3.1. Procedures of analysing the content

The analysis of the content of the coursebook H/I focused on the issue of «globality» through the exploration of the presence or absence of «inclusivity» and «inappropriacy» as defined by Gray (2002) (see sections 1.2.3. and 1.2.4.) in addition to «connectedness» referred to by Tomlinson (2001) and Chang (2003) (see section 1.2.5.). Investigating the frequency of mention of the topics explored, the researcher resorted to Conceptual Analysis

(Carley, 1990; Neuendorf, 2002) by tracking the presence of the following variables in the coursebook.

In order to explore the extent to which the writers of the coursebook are inclusive of minorities, the numbers, the roles, and the topics related to women, men, Whites, Blacks, and other diverse characters were reported. Similarly, in order to explore the extent to which the writers of the coursebook are sensitive to the issue of inappropriacy, the following examples of issues are investigated: sex (overt mention), narcotics, isms, pork, anarchy, AIDS, Israel and six pointed stars, racism, genetic engineering, terrorism, politics, violence, alcohol, out of marriage relationships (i.e. relations with someone other than ones' spouse such as cohabitation, dating, boy/girlfriend), glorifying some dangers in some countries, religion, ideological icons, and revealing clothes. The choice of these themes is based on inappropriate topics specified by Gray (2002), Pennycook (1994), and Ellis (1990). Likewise, in order to explore the extent to which the writers are investing in what connects people around the world, leisure activities, the issue of language, and global locations are explored.

In sum, «globality» of the coursebook is explored in terms of inclusivity, inappropriacy, and connectedness, which in turn are explored in terms of the examples of variables outlined in Figure 2 that clarifies the methodology of content analysis.

Figure 2: Themes and methodology for coding content

GLOBALITY

Representation
of
Inclusivity

Representation
of
Inappropriacy

Representation
of
Connectedness

Variable	Interest
Women	Numbers
Men	&
Whites	Roles
Blacks	&
	Topics
Asians
Diverse characters
Variable			Interest
Leisure activities			Types
Language varieties			&
			Frequency
Global connectivity
Variable		Interest
Sex (overt mention)		Avoided (A)
Narcotics
Isms
Pork
Anarchy
		Or
AIDS
Israel & six pointed stars
Racism
Genetic engineering		Present (P)
Terrorism
Politics
Violence
Alcohol
Out of marriage relationships (cohabitation, dating, boy/girlfriend)		Or
Glorifying dangers in		Treated with
some countries		caution (TC)
Religion
Ideological icons
Revealing clothes

As shown in Figure 2, the issue of inclusivity is explored in terms of the representation of minorities (Blacks, women, Asians) in addition to the representation of men and Whites whose representation is explored for comparison purposes. To clarify the rules set by the researcher in the analysis of the content, it could be said that when counting the number of Blacks, Whites, and Asians, the researcher considered all generations and used only pictures to preserve reliability. Additionally, children were not considered when counting men or women. Counting elderly people was based on the physical appearances of the characters unless their age or role (for example, `grandfather' or `grandmother') is mentioned in the coursebook.

The group `Diverse characters' refers to people who are not so numerous, in the explored coursebook, to constitute distinct groups such as Muslims, Arabs, Native Americans, and the disabled. The grouping of these characters was done after counting them and realising that they share the fact that they are few numerically speaking and in terms of roles. The categorisation of people as Asians, Muslims or Arabs was done on the basis of information available at the end of the book where the writers acknowledged the sources of the pictures. However, if no information was available the researcher resorted to the physical appearances of the characters and the context of their mention. In fact, the exploration of the representation of `Diverse characters' is important as it reveals the extent to which the writers of the coursebook are really inclusive and, hence, determine the degree of the «globality» of the coursebook.

Table 3 is a sample of the tables used to gather the numbers, the roles, and the topics related to each of the groups examined in an attempt to study their inclusivity.

Table 2: A sample of inclusivity tables

	Presence	Roles	Topics
Unit 1: It's a wonderful world	8	mother/student/ celebrity/ internet fan, scientist/ athlete/ mother/	job /leaving for school/ goodwill ambassador/wonders of the world/ Olympic games/ being late/
Unit 2: Get happy
Unit 3: Telling tales
Unit 4: Doing the right thing
Unit 5: On the move
Unit 6: I just love it
Unit 7: The world of work
Unit 8: Just imagine
Unit 9: Relationships
Unit 10: Obsession
Unit 11: Tell me about it
Unit 12: Life's great events
Total:

Additionally, in order to study the extent to which the writers of the coursebook are sensitive to inappropriacy Table 3 includes a list of inappropriate issues for a global audience. The list draws on issues raised by Gray (2002), Pennycook (1994), and Ellis (1990).

Table 3: Table devised to explore inappropriacy

Inappropriate items

Units

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Sex (overt mention)

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Narcotics

Isms

Pork

Anarchy

AIDS

Israel & six pointed stars

Racism

Genetic engineering

Terrorism

Politics

Violence

Alcohol

Out of marriage relationships (cohabitation, dating, boy/girlfriend)

P

P

P

A

A

P

A

A

P

A

P

A

Glorifying dangers in some countries

Religion

Ideological icons

Revealing clothes

Moreover, studying writers' treatment of connectedness, the various leisure activities, global locations, as well as the language issue were explored in terms of types and frequency of mention in each unit. Leisure activities were investigated as they can be evidence that coursebook writers are looking for `safe topics' (Renner, 1997; Gray, 2002) connecting people all over the world.

The researcher also attempted to track the varieties of English used in the coursebook whose neglect can be evidence that the use of Standard English is considered to be for

reasons of connectedness. This is based on the argument that using other varieties can limit the common grounds that the writers seek to find in the global coursebook.

Moreover, the research resorted to reporting the way the global locations appear in H/I and the frequency of this appearance, through exploring the detectable variety of images and situations in which the countries constituting the world were depicted. The exploration of this feature helps also in realising the extent to which the coursebook is global and the meaning of `global'. This is because investigating the scope of the locations mentioned in the coursebook provides evidence as to «globality», as claimed by coursebook publishers and writers, or of ethnocentricity as suggested by Phillipson (1992), Pennycook (1994), and Canagarajah (1999).

Therefore, as the themes detailed above (see Figure 2), «globality» of a textbook can be assessed with reference to theses themes.

3.3.2. Data handling

The coursebook was examined carefully for evidence of «globality». The words and pictures in the units were considered and critically interpreted to track the viability of the principles of inclusivity, inappropriacy (Gray, 2002), and connectedness (Tomlinson, 1998; Chang, 2003). `Critical' here means attempting to uncover the possible overt and hidden implications (Fairclough, 1989) behind the choices made by coursebook writers. This means that each time the researcher found a term or a picture that was related to the themes explored in the coursebook, it was documented and interpreted. The researcher considered only the instances of representation where the depiction of the variables was clear and representative. For example, instances like the following were not reported when exploring inclusivity of women: «I've got two brothers and a sister» (Soars & Soars, 2003, p. 6).

After analysing and discussing the content of Headway Intermediate in terms of its preservation of inclusivity, avoidance of inappropriacy, and investment in connectedness, the results were considered in the creation of a questionnaire. The questionnaire focused on the same themes explored in the content analysis in order to explore the perception of 251 users of the global coursebook they use and the possible (mis)match that could exist between the content and their perception.

Thus, the following section will focus on the methodology used in the development, distribution, and handling of the questionnaire.

3.4. Questionnaire used in the study

This section contains the description of the questionnaire and the participants in the first and second sub-sections respectively. The procedures, the timing, and the difficulties witnessed when collecting information are to be dealt with in the third sub-section under the subtitle `data collection'. Finally, the way the data was handled will be the focus of the fourth sub-section entitled `data handling'.

3.4.1. Description of the questionnaire

The questionnaire used to elicit data from the respondents is composed of two main sections and contained open-ended and closed questions. The open-ended questions aimed at enabling the respondents to choose from proposed alternatives while the closed questions provided them with the opportunity of adding some data that are not proposed by the researcher as suggested in literature on questionnaires (Geer, 1988, 1991).

The first section of the questionnaire is general in the sense of gathering background data about the participants' gender, educational level, employment, and the kind of English they need. This section is important as it provides the researcher with an idea about the target

population explored, which might be helpful in explaining their responses in the second section. The first section contains, also, general questions that prepare the participants to the more specific questions of the second section.

The second section is composed of seven questions targeting what is and what should be mentioned in the coursebook in terms of language varieties, themes, and closeness of the materials to participants' context and expectations. These questions cover learners' perceptions of the themes of connectedness, inappropriacy, and inclusivity explored in this thesis.

Question 2.1. tackles the scope of the themes that the participants think should form the content of an English textbook. The respondents were provided with four alternatives targeting the themes, which are `International', `Specific to Tunisia', `International and Tunisian', and `British and American only'. Such a question could reveal the extent to which the learners are open to local or global issues, which helps understand their perception of the extent of connectedness.

Question 2.2. explores what the participants think the coursebook should include in terms of language varieties. Respondents were provided with four alternatives covering `American English only', `British English only', `Asian Englishes', and `International English'. In this question, the respondents were provided with the possibility of choosing more than one alternative only for `Asian Englishes' and `International English'. The aim behind this question is discovering learners' preferences as to the kind or kinds of varieties to be used to in the coursebook, as part of exploring their perception of connectedness.

In question 2.3. the participants were asked to rank the presence of some proposed cultures in H/I according to a scale composed of five degrees. The cultures suggested are: American, Asian, British, International, North African, and youth cultures. Besides, an open-

ended question was asked to permit the respondents to suggest any other culture they think that is present in the coursebook. The scale proposed is composed of five degrees starting from zero to five and it aims at categorising participants' perception of the cultures as `Low' (between zero and one), `Medium' (between two and three), and `High' (between four and five).

Question 2.4. tackles the extent to which the participants find in H/I parallels with their own situations in terms of `Hopes', `Daily life', `Jobs', `Problems', `Concerns', and `Leisure activities'. The respondents were provided with a scale to rank the alternatives from zero to five in order to classify the closeness of the material to their contexts as `Low closeness' (between zero and one), `Medium closeness' (between two and three), and `High closeness' (between four and five). The end aim behind this question is assessing participants' perception of the inclusivity of their individual lives in the coursebook they use.

Question 2.5. explored participants' possible sensitivity to some proposed controversial issues. The issues suggested are `AIDS', `Alcohol', `Anarchy', `Divorce', `Out of marriage relationships', `Genetic engineering', `Israel and six pointed stars', Narcotics', `Politics', `Pork', `Racism', `Religion', `Stereotypes', `Terrorism', and `Violence'. The respondents were asked to identify whether they `Strongly agree', `Agree', `Disagree', or `Strongly disagree' with mentioning these controversial issues in H/I. Such a question could reveal what the investigated learners perceive as inappropriate and what not, which helps understand whether the publishers are successful in handling inappropriacy or not; especially after comparing the results with the findings of the content analysis as to this issue.

Question 2.6. targets participants' perception of the specificity of the topics mentioned in H/I. Six alternatives were provided which are: `America', `The Arab world', `Britain', `North Africa', `The world', and `Europe'. The respondents were provided in this question

with the opportunity of choosing more than one alternative. Such a question could reveal, when compared to the results of question 2.1., the match or mismatch between learners' perception of connectedness and the real content of the coursebook.

In question 2.7. the focus is on the domains that the participants think that H/I prepares them to be engaged in. Eight alternatives were provided, which are: `Communicate with other Tunisian professionals', `Understand media in English', `Chat', `Correspond electronically', `Negotiate with international partners', `Read scientific research articles', `Read travel book', and `Translate legal documents'. This question is a kind of assessment of, which helps understand the extent to which the participants think the coursebook serve the purpose of connecting them with the world.

3.4.2. The participants

The target population of this study are 251 third year adult learners of English studying at IBLV Tunis. The participants were chosen because they used the coursebook explored, H/I, during the school year (2009-2010). Their familiarity with the coursebook could be valuable not only for exploring the issues related to the notion of `global coursebook' but also for measuring the appropriateness of this kind of coursebook for them. What follows is a description of the target population as indicated from the results of the first section of the questionnaire reserved for background information.

Table 4 below summarises the background information of the participants. Table 4: Background information of the participants

	Gender		Educational level				Employment		Need for English		Needed kind of English
Alternatives	Female	Male	B	M	L	O	Yes	No	Yes	No	GE	ET	BE	SE	O
Percentages	54	46	20	32	26	22	42	58	83	17	46	19	7	17	11

The table reveals that 54% of the participants are women while 46% are men. As far as the educational level of the respondents is concerned, 32% of them claimed that they are maîtrise (M) holders in comparison to 26% with licences (L) and 20% with baccalaureate (B) degrees. The other (O) degrees that the participants claimed they hold are MA, PhD, and engineering diplomas.

Needless to mention that 42% of the respondents claimed they have a job while 58% do not. The jobs that the learners claimed they occupy are tourist guides (9 learners), flight attendants (10), doctors (15), bank officers (7), accountants (7), receptionists (4), lawyers (5), teachers (14), university teachers (6), researchers (5), nurses (4), operators in call center (6), engineers (11), journalists (2). Among those who affirmed having a job, 83% said that they need English in their occupations while 17% said they do not.

46% of the participants claimed that general English (GE) is the kind they expect they will need in the future compared to 19% who chose English for tourism (ET) and 17% preferring scientific English (SE). Only 7% claimed that they will need business English (BE) and 11% mentioned other (O) kinds of English.

The other kinds of English that the learners suggested are medical English (mentioned 18 times), English for engineers (8), and legal English (6).

3.4.3. Data collection

After preparing the final draft of the questionnaire, 251 copies were produced and distributed by the researcher and three of his MA colleagues. The researchers collected data using two ways depending on the situation. Some participants were given copies of the questionnaires and they answered them by themselves at the end of the class sessions. Others were questioned directly by the researcher in the lobbies of IBLV when the participants were

entering, leaving, or having a break. Sometimes the researcher felt the need to paraphrase or translate certain words into Tunisian Arabic for the respondents but this happened only on two or three occasions.

The questionnaires were distributed between the 3^rd and the 26^th of May 2010. Actually, the administrative staff at IBLV and its annexes were very cooperative except for some teachers who were rushing to finish their courses and refused to assist with questionnaire administration. Besides, some learners were reluctant to answer the questions and when the researcher witnessed their lack of motivation, they were thanked and their questionnaires omitted. Additionally, 22 questionnaires were missing data to reach the final number (251 participants) and therefore, fresh questionnaires were distributed another day to make up the count.

3.4.4. Data handling

As the aim of the study is not focused on investigating the correlations between the questions, the researcher did not resort to statistical packages. Instead, handling data was done manually by the researcher through creating four sets of tables each one representing 50 questionnaires in addition to a fifth set representing 26 questionnaires and a sixth set representing 25 questionnaires. In each set of questionnaires the answers specific to each question were counted and checked carefully if there was a mismatch between the numbers and the total number of each set. This procedure resulted in the production of six sets of tables. The six sets of tables were gathered in one set representing the total number of participants, which is 251 respondents. These tables were, then, transformed into graphs using Microsoft Excel software.

In order to preserve triangulation, the discussion of the findings of the content analysis was done in light of the literature review while the discussion of the results of the questionnaire was inspired by the literature review and the content analysis. In fact, the results of the content analysis will be compared to the findings of previous researchers with regard to the investigated themes; inclusivity, inappropriacy, and connectedness. Then the findings of the questionnaire will be assessed with reference to previous literature on these themes and the content analysis.

Conclusion

In this chapter, the focus was laid on the explanation of the theoretical background underlying the choice of techniques proper to collection and analysis of data. The issues related to the quantitative/qualitative debate, triangulation, as well as the arguments with regard to the use of content analysis and questionnaire methods were reviewed.

This chapter contained also a detailed clarification of the methodology of the present study in terms of the methods used (the content analysis and the questionnaire), the participants, data collection, and handling.

The issue of «globality» in global coursebooks was explored using content analysis and the questionnaire method in relation to three principles claimed to be essential features of the global coursebook; that is preserving inclusivity, avoiding inappropriacy (Gray, 2002), and investing in connectedness (Tomlinson, 1998; Chang, 2003). Features of these principles were gathered with reference to some of the components of the above mentioned principles. In the following chapter, the results of the analysis of the content of H/I will be presented and discussed. After that, these will be examined against the results obtained from the questionnaire analysis.

Chapter Four: Discussion of findings of content analysis 4.0. Introduction

The general aim of this study is to explore the principles of «globality» in H/I as an example of global coursebooks. For this purpose, two research questions have been asked:

1. To what extent is Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) global?

2. What are the perceptions of the learners as to the global aspects of H/I as a global coursebook?

One of the most important components of this research paper is representation, which is highly important for the investigation of «globality» in global textbooks. In this chapter, the findings of the content analysis will be presented such as clear and hidden implications of H/I as a global ELT coursebook. This analysis will focus on the manifestations of «globality», which is the primary concern of this study. This chapter is divided into three sections dealing with inclusivity in representation, cultural appropriacy, and global connectedness.

4.1. The limits of inclusivity in representation:

As stated in the introduction, this section encompasses two sub-sections presenting the results of the content analysis focusing on cases of gender and racial balance in Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003).

4.1.1. On gender balance

In order to explore the way the writers of the coursebook handled the image of women, the number of occurrence of men and women in the coursebook were counted. While women were mentioned 128 times, men were mentioned 149 times.

The study of the content analysis of H/I shows that the writers were attentive to the frequency of mentioning women in a variety of situations. Appendix B presents the number

of women in each unit and the related situations. The analysis shows that women were depicted 128 times in all the units, as Figure 3 reveals.

Figure 3: Mention of women across units:

23 21
			15
							13
							10
																	9
8							8										8
							6
											5
																	2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Units

25

20

15

10

5

Number of women

0

In terms of roles, the results indicate that women were assigned diverse roles. In fact, they are shown to be present in various jobs such as scientist (unit 1), cellist (unit 10), designer (unit 2), computer expert (unit 3), waitress (unit 4), police officer (unit 6), secretary (units 7 and 11), flight attendant (unit 8), receptionist (unit 8), and boss (unit 11). Additionally, they are represented doing entertainment activities such as tourists (unit 2), sports practitioners (units 1 and 2), and dolls collector (unit 10). Women are, also, depicted as family members such as mothers (11 times), wives (8 times), and grandmothers (twice).

However, while women are depicted 21 times in family roles, they are depicted to occupy only six prestigious roles including three power jobs. These were celebrity (unit 1), computer expert (unit 3), travel agency owner (unit 5), veterinary (unit 9), and boss (unit 11).

The diversity characterising the representation of women was not always positive, as the analysis shows. There were 11 instances of stereotypical depiction of women. These are girlfriend, practicing aerobics, jogging, and yoga (unit 2), talking (unit 3), waitress (unit 4), secretary (units 7 and 11), receptionist and food provider (unit 8), and dolls collector (unit 10). However, one may be consoled by the fact that these 11 instances of misrepresentation are a small number compared to the 128 representations of women.

Thus, the roles women were depicted to occupy were diverse and numerous but stereotypical and reductionistic in some instance. This could be interpreted as confirming the idea of Arikan (2005) about apparent inclusivity and hidden imbalance but one needs to bear in mind that coursebook writers are interested also in representing women in authentic situations. This interest could explain the number of non-prestigious roles assigned to women in real life. An illustration of this are the topics in which women were taking part, which are characterised by variety, as they are evolving round jobs, tourism, charity, marriage and marriage problems, entertainment, and world wonders.

Hence, it could be said that the analysis of the image of women in H/I shows the writers attempt to depict women positively. However, the problem lies in finding a working compromise between «appropriately» and «authentically» representing women. Such a problem is the result of writing for a global audience, which is a challenge for coursebook writers viewing the diversity of what is «appropriate» and what is «authentic» on the global level.

For gender comparison reasons, an exploration of the image of men was carried out. As far as men are concerned, the analysis of the coursebook shows that they are represented in a variety of situations. Appendix C summarises the number of times men were mentioned in each unit as well as the related roles and topics.

The analysis shows that men were represented 149 times in H/I. Figure 4 focuses on the number of men in each unit.

Figure 4: Presence of men across units

21 21
			15
											14
											13
			10
													9
							8
															6
															5
							3

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Units

Number of men

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

The analysis revealed that some roles and jobs were not assigned to women in the coursebook such as astronaut (Unit 1), president (Unit 1), worrier (Unit 3), cook (Unit 6), boxer (Unit 7), thief (Unit 7), iron worker (Unit 7), Nobel Prize winner (Unit 7), gambler (Unit 12), and drunk (Unit 12). In turn, the topics related to men are similar to the ones assigned for women except for some activities. These issues include drinking spiritual beverages (Units 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12), hand working (Unit 7), assassination (Unit 7), and prison (Unit 7).

It is noticeable that the number of men exceeds that of women but one needs to bear in mind that there are some roles women were not depicted to be doing because they may distort their `good' representation such as gambler, drunk, and thief. In contrast, there are

other high-status roles, including 8 power jobs, that women were not depicted to be performing such as hurricane hunter, medal giver, lawyer, job interviewer, astronaut, boxer, iron worker, Nobel Prize winner, worrier, Chef, and President.

Nevertheless, gender balance seems to be preserved not only through the attempts the writers make to preserve similar depiction of women and men in terms of roles but also through compensation, that is assigning similar (but not necessarily the same) roles for both genders. For example, it was a man who obtained the Nobel Prize but it was a woman who was depicted as goodwill ambassador. Additionally, while a man was shown as astronaut, a woman was depicted as scientist. For this reason, the general depiction of women seems to be balanced, «authentic», and representative. This care for depicting women «properly» confirms the findings of Gray (2002) who contends that the writers of global coursebooks are sensitive to representing women positively.

What is uncertain, viewing the fact that the coursebook is assumed to be global, is the extent to which the image drawn by the writers of the coursebook is representative of a global reality concerning gender. The coursebook seems to draw an image that it is not representative of women around the world but only of women in developed countries. Since «authenticity» is an essential element in ELT materials (Nunan, 1988), this image has less significance for some contexts around the world. It might be «logical» to intend to represent women positively but in order to preserve «authenticity», the material needs to be as close as possible to learners' local realities.

It is for this reason that catering for a world audience is inhibiting as it ties the hands of coursebook writers. Seeking to establish a global compromise could prevent the coursebook from being close to the learners using it. For example, reflecting the real situation of women or men in particular contexts can be very motivating for learners not only to learn better but

also for the sake of social change, as proponents of radical pedagogy argue (Freire, 1970). Despite the fact that situations of war, rape, prostitution, starvation, and discrimination might be disappointing, depicting the image of women as it is in real life could be motivating because learners may see it «authentic» and local (Rinvolucri, 1999). Additionally, depicting women in «authentic» situations could help learners develop attitudes towards changing the situation of women in case it is not comfortable, hence engaging them not only in effective learning but also in social action (Freire, 1970).

In general, it is safe to say that, despite some instances of misrepresentation, the writers of the coursebook showed sensitivity to depicting women in a positive image. Such depiction could help women learn `better', following the guidelines that Sunderland (1994). Reinforcing a positive image of women could contribute in the fight against the stereotypes and/or the position of women in some societies as inferior to men. However, the issue of establishing balance between representing women in «good» light and preserving «authenticity» is still an unresolved question due to the heterogeneity characterising the situations of women worldwide. Such a finding may legitimate calls for (g)localising the coursebook in order to not only facilitate the job of the writers and the teachers but also in order to preserve learners' motivation and effective learning as attested by Sunderland (1994) and Gray (2002).

4.1.2. On racial balance

In order to cease the opportunity that comparison of results provide when studying representation, the image of Whites, Blacks, Asians, and diverse characters (which is a category adopted by the researcher to encompass the few and different persons found in the content) will be analysed before discussing them.

The analysis of the results show that the white race is the predominant social component in H/I. Numerically, Whites are present in 257 pictures, which means 87% of the total number of pictures compared to Blacks (4%), Asians (3%), and diverse characters (6%)..

Generally, the representation of racial minorities shows bias not only in terms of roles and topics dealt with but even in terms of numbers. Figure 5 illustrates the difference in frequency of mention for racial minorities.

Figure 5: Representation of racial minorities

6%

4% 3%

87%

Whites
Blacks
Asians

Diverse characters

The dominance of Whites could be controversial as it may confirm the claims of Phillipson (1992), Pennycook (1994), and Canagarajah (1999) who contend that global coursebooks are «ethnocentric» in the sense of favouring the white race. Such possible problem may result in resistance of content as shown by Canagrajah (1999). Canagarajah (1999) showed that learners change the dialogues in the coursebook to make them express their local concerns instead of western ones. Such behaviour could show a kind of resistance to foregrounding white man's concerns at the expense of coloured peoples' ones.

To illustrate this dominance in details, Appendix D summarises the results concerning representation of Whites. Figure 6 focuses on the numerical presence of Whites across the units.

Figure 6: The presence of Whites across the units:

22

18

42

10

10

14

43

8

18

26

27

19

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

As shown in Appendix D, these roles include singer, father, lawyer, clown, businessman, mother, athlete, daughter, and eccentric individual. Such roles cover family life, work, and entertainment.

Considering these results and the findings in Figure 5, the claim of «ethnocentricity» could be confirmed especially, as shown in Figure 5, that Blacks represent only 4%, diverse characters 6% and the Asians 3% of the total number of pictures. Apart from the ideological and imperial reasons, and may be aims, behind this fact, such finding could be also explained by the use of target language culture in H/I. Had the coursebook been locally designed, the

writers would not face harsh criticism as far as representation is concerned. The claim is so as localisation of coursebooks could be advantageous for avoiding interpretations of misrepresentation.

The content analysis shows that Blacks were represented only 13 times in H/I. The numbers for each unit along with the roles and topics related to Blacks are summarised in Appendix E. The focus on the numbers of black people in each unit shows that they are absent in 8 out of the 12 units constituting the whole coursebook. Figure 7 is meant to be stated in order to illustrate the distribution of Blacks across the units.

Figure 7: The presence of the Blacks across the units:

5
			3 3
2
			0 0 0 0				0 0 0 0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Units

6

5

4

3

2

1

Number of black people

0

The roles that Blacks occupied in H/I are internet fan and athlete (unit 1), child, passerby, and basketball players (unit 2), teenager (unit 4), boxers and secretary (unit 7), flight attendant (Unit 8), poor child (Unit 8), food provider (unit 8), young man (unit 11). They are characterised by being limited to passive roles or decorative ones compared to the roles assigned for Whites (see Appendix D). This limitation in representation characterises also the topics where Blacks are mentioned. These topics are wonders of the world, Olympic Games, happiness, job, sport, teens, boxing, appointment, winning the lottery, charity, and trainers.

Similarly, the content analysis shows that Asians are represented only in nine pictures in the coursebook, which might legitimates saying that the representation of the Asians is also characterised by reductionism. Appendix F summarises the number, the role, and the

topics related to the Asians in H/I. The partiality characterising the representation of the Asians in this supposedly global coursebook is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8: The presence of Asians across the units:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Units

2					2		2			2
		0		0		1		0	0		0	0	0
Number of Asians	12 9 6 3 0

The numerical reductionism that characterises the image of Asians (only 9 pictures) was matched by the roles assigned to them, as the limited number of pictures of Asians logically brought about limited kinds of roles assigned for them.

In fact, Asians are depicted to be fulfilling only these roles: celebrity and internet fan (unit 1), businessmen (unit 4), friend (unit 5), student visitor and brother (unit 6), smiling woman and serious man (unit 9), and secretary (unit 11). Such limitation in terms or roles affected also the topics in which the Asians were mentioned, which are: goodwill ambassador, wonders of the world, manners, arranging to meet, student visit, correspondence, kinds of personalities, and jobs.

None of these roles are negative but the problem is that they do not represent Asians in other diverse roles like the prestigious and power jobs assigned to Whites. Such a partiality

and «ethnocentricity» in representation may produce resisting attitudes towards the coursebook as H/I is used across the globe.

Contrary to the Asians, the roles and topics assigned for Whites (see Appendix D) are characterised by diversity because they cover the various situations of life. Some of these roles are family members, workers, business persons, lawyers, athlete, police officers, painters, actors, alcoholic people, thieves, singers, and teenagers. This image certainly encompasses some negative situations (such as alcoholic people and thieves) but «authenticity» and the necessity of familiarising learners with the real world is not this time beaten by positive inclusivity recommendations. This means that the writers found no problem representing men in situations such as thieves, eccentric individuals, and alcoholic people (see Appendix C) probably because there were no predefined guidelines imposing on publishers to represent Men in positive images.

Moreover, other diverse characters have been marginalised in terms of numbers (18 pictures), roles, and topics. As clarified in Chapter Two, the category `diverse characters' refers to Arabs, Muslims, Native Americans, people with health problems, and a man wearing a Scottish kilt. All of these people make up only 6% of the total number of persons in H/I. Being a minority, they were grouped together to constitute a category that shares the fact of being numerically misrepresented.

Indeed, the coursebook encompassed only 18 references to diverse characters. These characters were mentioned to fulfil specific roles in specific topics that are summarised in Appendix G.

Arabs and Muslims were mentioned only as talking, sitting, and when dealing with manners. Such image could, turn, result in learners' resistance and feeling of alienation that

hinders their effective learning. This possible resistance may not be necessarily verbalised as it could figure out in learners' silence (Canagarajah, 1999).

In turn, Native Americans were mentioned only in the context of a folk tale where a character fulfilling the role of a warrior runs away when hearing the voice of a crying baby, whereas, issues pertaining to the historical injustices suffered by the Red Indians are not mentioned. One explanation for this state of affairs could be that the publishers are less sensitive to including Americans appropriately due to the competence of ESL coursebooks in the American market. It could be also that the publishers wanted the coursebook to stay a British book. Another possible interpretation could be publishers' concern in preserving the «hegemony» of «aspirational» (Gray, 2002) issues in the content of global coursebooks.

Additionally, people with health problems were mentioned four times and only in the context of just the possibility of receiving charity. The focus in the instances where this group was mentioned was on the possibility of giving them money if one wins the lottery. None of the problems or pains of people with health problems are discussed seriously and directly in the coursebook. Such decorative representation of this group might deepen their alienation as they cannot find themselves in the content.

Discussing the findings as to representation of minorities, it could be said that the publishers of global coursebooks are enjoying a kind of freedom in representing Men in the content. Such freedom is absent, nontheless, with Blacks or Asians who are not depicted as thieves and alcoholic (see Appendices E and F) so as to possibly evade charges of racism. Nevertheless, racial bias is revealed in the limited numbers and kinds of the roles and topics assigned for non-white minorities.

In fact, Blacks are depicted only as internet fan, athlete, child, passer-by, basketball players, teenager, boxers, secretary, flight attendant, poor child, food provider, smiling child,

and young man. Blacks are never depicted in H/I as, for example, business persons, painters, and writers (see Appendix E), which might provide the learners with the stereotypical idea that Blacks do not fulfil these prestigious roles.

Hence, the «globality» of the coursebook can be questioned if one considers that Blacks constitute an important racial class not only in America and Britain but also around the globe while in H/I they are represented only 13 times compared to Whites represented 257 times. The feminists, in fighting for preserving the positive image of women in coursebooks, imposed guidelines on publishers and claimed that women do not learn effectively when the coursebook is biased against them, which was taken into consideration by publishers, as Gray (2002) claims. By analogy, Blacks may not learn effectively with a biased coursebook. This is the dilemma of the global coursebook; that is, it can not practically cater «appropriately» for a global audience characterised by diversity.

The same conclusions apply to the image of Asians who are depicted in the pictures as celebrity, internet fan, businessmen, friend, student visitor, brother, smiling woman, serious man, and secretary. This limitation in number (9 pictures) as well as in roles and topics (see Appendix F) does not really reflect the reality characterising the use of English around the world. Graddol (2000) argues that Asia, for demographic and commercial reasons, is where the future of English will be decided; therefore marginalising Asians reduces any connection with the desired or pretended «globality».

In conclusion, the attempt of writers to be inclusive as far as the content of the coursebook was found to be partial. Women were shown in diverse situations but the problem lies in the authenticity of the image the writers drew for them at the global level. Racial bias was found to be characterising the representation of different races in terms of numbers, role, as well as topics. Such bias favoured Whites over the other groups (such as

Blacks, Asians, Arabs, Muslims, and Native Americans). Such failure on the part of the publishers to be inclusive and fair in representing the audiences of the global coursebook could be explained by the diversity of the global audiences. This certainly does not suggest that the global diversity is an excuse for the writers to misrepresent people. Instead, this shows the impracticality of perfect representation of globally diverse people. Based on the results found in this study, it could be said that it is impractical to preserve the principle of global inclusivity of various minorities in ELT global coursebooks, which shows that the notion of «global» is vague and unrealisable.

In the following section, the concern will be the extent to which the tendency of the writers of the coursebook to avoid «inappropriate» issues is successful.

4.2. The global coursebook and cultural inappropriacy:

In-depth analysis of H/I shows that the PARSNIPs that Gray (2002) mentioned (i.e. issues that are not to be talked about in the global coursebook) are not, in fact, totally avoided. Appendix H demonstrates the existence or absence of controversial topics in the coursebook. Topics that are avoided were assigned the letter «A», topics that are present were marked with the letter «P», and topics that are treated with caution were marked with «TC».

The analysis of the coursebook shows that some controversial topics were avoided, others were tackled with extreme caution, and others were mentioned several times in the material throughout the units.

4.2.1. Controversial topics avoided:

As stated in Appendix H, the analysis of the content of H/I shows that the following issues are not mentioned: sex, narcotics, anarchy, Israel and six pointed stars, racism, genetic engineering, terrorism, isms, and pork. They are regarded as highly controversial for ethical

and ideological reasons, therefore, avoiding them is a concern for the publishers in order to evade any obstacle that might hinder the global spread of the coursebook.

Due to the controversial nature of the topics mentioned earlier, publishers seem to have chosen to avoid them in H/I. Avoiding these topics is another price that publishers pay to preserve their global clients. Avoiding isms could mean depriving learners from discussing certain issues such as capitalism, communism, consumerism, racism and the like. Although it could be said that these topics may be boring for some learners, isms could be also motivating for others. Additionally, H/I encompasses no reference to land disputes and conflicts or people from Palestine or Israel just because mentioning them is not «appropriate» for a global audience.

Discussing these controversial issues in an ELT global coursebook could represent a source of motivation and of developing argumentation skills (Thornbury, 2002) for the kind of learners who might look at the teaching of English as an imperialistic act. Certainly, argumentation skills could be developed using other topics. But the problem is that if local audiences accept discussing these controversial topics, then, avoiding them is a non suitable decision.

It could be said, then, that priority is given to fear of offending users, which seems to be a «golden» rule for publishers to preserve the global business of selling ELT coursebooks around the world. It seems that the generalisation rule on which the publishers of global coursebooks operate is hindering, especially that many teachers around the world consider the coursebook as a book that is to be followed literally (Apple, 1989) and they do not adopt appropriation techniques.

4.2.2. Controversial topics treated with caution:

This study found that three issues are treated with caution in H/I, which are politics, violence, and AIDS (see Appendix H).

As far as the theme of politics is concerned the writers mentioned it twice and in general instances. Viewing the controversial aspect of this theme, publishers seem to have chosen to mention one positive feature of it, which is just the idea of meeting the president, and one negative feature, which is saying that all politicians tell lies. However, one wonders whether this diplomatic mention of what shapes human lives is sufficient and representative of the global reality of politics. The importance of politics in language teaching is that it provides an important opportunity for learners to develop argumentation skills. Avoiding it is another problem resulting from the globalisation of what needs to be local. Because the coursebook is designed for a global audience, it seems that publishers seek to please everybody (Gray, 2002) even at the expense of effective learning of non-western learners.

The theme Violence, in turn, is treated with caution despite the fact that it is a world problem that affects all countries all over the world. In H/I it is reduced only to domestic violence (although this issue is highly important), dealt with only in the last unit (Unit 12), without any mention of other types of violence such as war, discrimination, and rape.

One wonders whether this is related to what could be termed `the every one is happy principle' that characterises the units and roles in the coursebook. According to proponents of «authenticity» of materials (Nunan, 1988), this reductionism is not effective for learners as it depicts an unreal world for most people on the globe and even in western countries who suffer from violence too. Compromising at the global level inhibits learners from motivating issues to be discussed in classrooms.

AIDS, in turn, was treated with caution in H/I. It was mentioned only once may be because of the sensitivity of the topic for various cultures across the world. In order not to lose markets, publishers prefer not to incorporate this theme despite the fact that avoiding discussing this theme prevents the coursebook from being an instrument of change and raising awareness in learners from different parts of the world society.

4.2.3. Controversial topics mentioned:

The results of the exploration of the coursebook, reported in Appendix H, shows that there are six controversial topics mentioned, which are alcoholic beverages, out of marriage relationships and revealing clothes, dealing with some dangers in particular countries, religion, and celebrating specific ideological icons.

As to alcohol, it is one of the PARSNIPs that Gray (2002) mentioned as being avoided in ELT coursebooks and yet it is mentioned using 11 referring items in H/I. Throughout the coursebook, the word alcohol or a related idea can be found (see table 5 below). As summarised in Table 5, alcohol or related terms and situations are mentioned in ten out of the twelve units.

Table 5: Referring items related to spiritual beverages in each unit of the coursebook

Referring items	Units
Image of alcoholic beverage	1
Coffee bar	2
drinking, alcohol, bars	3
Alcohol, beer, image, champagne, wine	4
Going for a dink, bar,	5
(No references)	6
(No references)	7
Beer, champagne	8
Lager, pub	9
beer	10
drinking	11
A drink, pub, champagne	12

Needless to say that in many instances these terms were repeated more than one time in the same unit such is the case of «a drink» mentioned in pages 94, 95, 96, and 132. Another example of the insensitivity with which coursebook writers treated the topic of alcohol when writing this global coursebook is manifested when they designed a situation in which two children are thinking of offering their father a lager on his birthday.

Alcohol is banned in some civil laws and in religious writings of some cultures, which makes its inclusion in the content of ELT coursebooks «inappropriate» for many societies. However, for Hill (2005), the avoidance of PARSNIP's is considered unethical, as one could not imagine an ELT coursebook without mention of alcohol especially for reasons related to socialisation and cross-cultural understanding. This means that alcoholic beverages are part of target language culture and mentioning them helps global users understand the culture and the society of the «native» users of English.

It could be said that Gray's (2002) claim about global coursebooks' avoidance of alcohol is not correct at least for H/I as the analysis revealed references to alcoholic items in 10 out of the 12 units constituting the whole coursebook. One could, then, come to the conclusion that what is inappropriate for global users is considered less important, this time, than «authenticity» of representation of target language culture.

In fact, the mention of spiritual beverages is not inappropriate for the western world and at the same time could not be avoided, as it constitutes an important component of the culture of western societies especially for doing business (Hill, 2005). Therefore, investing in target culture is «inappropriate» in this case, which shows again the impracticality of over-relying on global coursebooks and the necessity of thinking either about appropriation measures or taking the courageous decision of setting programs for developing local or glocal coursebooks.

In fact, based on the findings of this study, it could be suggested that locally produced coursebooks do not need to be hyper-local in the sense of being limited to a very specific region or even country. Local coursebooks could be designed for blocs sharing similar realities and perception about what is «appropriate» and what is not, which means similar cultures. An example could be designing coursebooks for the North African region. Such a procedure was resorted to by major publishing companies who designed coursebooks for groups of countries as indicated by Gray (2002).

This solution, in fact, allows for more localisation of content. As to the North African region, there appears to be no specific coursebook designed to meet the needs and expectation of learners from it. A possible explanation for this is that the market is not sufficiently profitable to the extent that world publishers design specific coursebooks for it. The English program coordinator in a private language school in Tunisia informed the researcher (October, 2009) that the consultant of Oxford University Press has recommended H/I for Tunisian and Libyan learners despite its weaknesses documented in this study. Compromises should be considered at the local or regional levels rather than at the global level.

The problem, then, concerns compromising, that is deciding what to avoid and what not. Such compromises that writers and publishers of H/I, as well as other coursebook writers (Bell and Gower, 1998; Hill, 2005), were obliged to make, show how fuzzy global coursebooks are and how hindering they are for «authentic» and at the same time «appropriate» content. It seems that there are really very few themes on which all humans agree, which could then be «appropriately» and «authentically» used in ELT coursebooks. Spiritual beverages would not be a problem if the coursebook was designed only for learners belonging to societies accepting them.

For learners from cultures considering the inclusion of alcohol in the content of the coursebook as inappropriate, they could have been replaced by coffee or tea, as they are acceptable components of some local cultures unless the lesson is about cultural habits. This problem is what drove some societies to design their own coursebooks like Iran (Alikbari, 2004). Localising the content of ELT coursebooks could be a viable solution in order to profit from the qualities of coursebooks published by world publishers while at the same time guaranteeing the possibility of their being used in diverse contexts without possible problems of rejection and resistance on the part of learners or institutions.

Additionally, revealing clothes (shown in 8 out of 12 units) and out of marriage relationships like dating (unit 1) and cohabitation (units 2, 3, 6, 9, and 11) are normally socially unacceptable for Muslims, which makes mentioning them in coursebooks «inappropriate» (see Appendix H). A similar conclusion was arrived at by Ellis (1990) who stated that some «inappropriate» topics like dating may not be accepted by some cultures and yet they are used in ELT practices. Despite their problematic status, out of marriage relationships are present in the global coursebook Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars, 2003). Such a denial of the sensitivity of similar issues may give credit to interpretations relating the inclusion of these topics to the idea of cultural imperialism (Phillipson, 1992) and generally conspiracy theories or at least cultural insensitivity to problematic issues. It is worth noting that learning may not occur if learners do not trust the coursebook they use (Canagarajah, 1999), which raises questions about the reasons behind including them in a coursebook that is assumed to be global.

Depicting a particular country as dangerous could be also considered «inappropriate» and yet it was mentioned by the writers of H/I. They reserved two pages (unit 4) to talk about the dangers in Thailand representing it as an unwelcoming country to visit. This issue is

controversial as the writers of the coursebook pretend that their product is global. As mentioned earlier, «globality» necessitates catering for a global audience and this image of Thailand may result in Thai learners' rejection of this coursebook.

The exploration of the coursebook revealed also that religion, which is stated in Gray (2002) as to be avoided by coursebook writers, is dealt with even if not explicitly. There are in fact some references to Christianity while at the same time there are no direct references to other religions. If referring to Judaism could be «inappropriate» for some Muslims and possibly so is referring to Islam for some Jews, then what makes the publishers believe that Christianity is acceptable? Learners may develop the idea that there is an attempt to present it as an agreed upon religion while others are not.

This could distract their attention from concentrating on acquiring the language to thinking about hidden ideological content in the material. It could be said that the world is connected and people need to learn about each other so that they can communicate and keep «peace» and understanding, as this is a mission that education can serve. However, talking about one religion and ignoring others may be interpreted as a hidden missionary act, which might inhibit learners from trusting and efficiently using the coursebook and learning effectively in some parts of the world.

This insensitivity could legitimate researchers' claims that English is related to missionary activities (Phillipson, 1992), which is not beneficial for the global use of the global coursebook. This is another problem of imported global coursebooks. Making successful compromises is, in fact, the core problem of ELT global coursebooks. Put simply it is impossible to be global in a diverse world.

The problem of whether it is up to the West to convert towards the `dos and don'ts' of Muslims or up to Muslims to convert to those of the West is a controversial issue that could

be related to what is called «clash of civilisations» (Huntington, 1996). This contention could be avoided by either trusting and subsidising local ELT coursebooks production or at least by recommending localised coursebooks from world publishers after providing them with lists of local topics to be avoided. This «glocalisation» (Gray, 2002, p. 166) operation could neutralise learners' and teachers' resistance and rejection of global ELT coursebooks on the basis of their ideology-loaded content.

Ideological icons are one of the issues to be avoided or at least treated with equity (if equality is ever possible in ideology representation) in ELT coursebooks to evade audiences' rejection (Gray, 2002). However, in H/I ideology is not totally avoided as the analysis revealed subtle instances of ideological bias.

In fact, the content analysis documented instances of celebrating specific ideological icons that are mainly related to the West with its values and lifestyle(s). Examples of this ideological bias include arguing for replacing the wonders of the world (unit 1) with

technological advances, mentioning Armstrong (without any reference to the Russian ^YuriGagarin, for instance), mentioning Madonna (unit 11), Uncle Sam (unit 11), Frank Sinatra

(unit 12), Hemingway and Picasso (Unit 3) without any reference to icons from periphery countries. Apart from a very brief mention of Nelson Mandela (unit 1), there were no other «Third World» celebrities, which could give credit to the claim that the coursebook is embodying and serving a particular ideology, which is that of the capitalist consumerist bloc (Phillipson, 1992; Canagarajah, 1999; Riches, 1999; Rinvolucri, 1999).

Being a language teaching resource, the global coursebook communicates many ideas to learners directly and/or indirectly, which makes preserving balance in coursebooks an urgent need and a challenge. It could be argued, then, that the language of H/I is western and so is the culture to be incorporated. In fact, some authors argue that it is not a must to teach

target language culture in order to learn a foreign language and an example for this is that stated by Kubota (2002) who talked about the decision on the part of Japanese authorities to invest their own culture in ELT to avoid cultural imperialism. The idea of target culture teaching could, in fact, be seen as a form of serving particular ideological interests using global ELT coursebooks as these latter represent «textual emanation of the discourses of the institutions of a target culture» (Burgess, 1993, p. 315).

Through the content analysis it was possible to demonstrate that the writers of H/I showed only partial concern for avoiding «inappropriate» global issues. In fact, the state of «globality» may be unattainable, given the huge and contradicting amount of controversies that the writers need to consider. The global coursebook seems to fail at the level of world cultural diversity, as little consideration is given for the sensitivity of some topics and behaviours in some cultures. These caveats deprive H/I of its «globality».

Such a conclusion shows again the fuzziness of the notion of the global coursebook and provides arguments for localisation of ELT coursebooks or at least glocalisation (Tomlinson, 2001; Gray, 2002), which is a term referring to blending «local and international partners» (Bolitho, 2003) in order to «bring the best of both worlds to the writing process» (ibid). This means mixing cultural components derived from the global and the local in the design of the content of ELT coursebooks.

The contextualisation (Nunan, 1991; Howard & Major, 2004, p. 105), humanisation (Tomlinson, 2001), and degeneralisation (Hill, 2005) of coursebooks could mitigate Wajnryb's (1996) claims that global coursebooks present the world as «safe, clean, harmonious, benevolent, undisturned (sic) and PG-rated» (qtd in Tomlinson, 2001). This helps designing a coursebook that is as nearer as possible to learners' realities and specific daily lives for better and effective learning.

It seems that finding a compromise between being sensitive to world cultures on the one hand and promoting cross-cultural knowledge through ELT coursebooks on the other hand is not and could not be successfully accomplished relying on the global coursebook H/I, which could legitimate «de-generalisation» (Hill, 2005) of global coursebooks. This means designing specific coursebooks for specific cultures, which narrows the conditions manifested in the general guidelines imposed on coursebook writers and the compromises they find themselves obliged to make. Just like publicity is localised in global media (Gray, 2002), global coursebooks could too be localised not only to evade learners' resistance of content (Canagarajah, 1999) but also for the learners to find their voices (Kramsch, 1993) in the content as manifested in their representation.

In the following section, the practicality of the principle of connectedness will be explored in H/I.

4.3. The global coursebook and global connectedness

Connectedness could encompass several components but for practical reasons it was studied in this study with reference to three features; leisure activities, the issue of language, and global connectivity. The choice of these possible features was based on the researcher's perception and expectation of what could connect global audiences.

4.3.1. Leisure activities

97 different leisure activities were mentioned in H/I. Table 6 summarises them and provides the frequency of their mention in each unit.

Table 6: Leisure activities and their frequency in each unit of the coursebook

	Leisure activities	Number of times
Unit 1	Travel	5
	Sport	2
	Holiday	1
	Internet	1
	TV	2
	Party	2
Unit 2	Sport	8
	Music	1
	Party	1
	TV	2
Unit 3	Music	1
	Film	3
	Travel	3
	Holiday	1
	Sunbathing	1
	Sport	2
	Play	1
Unit 4	Travel	2
Unit 5	Travel	11
	Sport	7
	Dancing	1
Unit 6	Dancing	1
	Music	1
	Sport	1
	Travel	1
Unit 7	Travel	6
	Sport	2
Unit 8	Travel	6
	Film	1
Unit 9	Holiday	2
	Party	1
	Travel	4
Unit 10	Holiday	1
	Film	1
	Collecting dolls + star wars memorabilia	1
Unit 11	Travel	3
	TV	2
Unit 12	Travel	2
	Holiday	1
	TV	1
Total number of leisure activities: 97

What could be noticed from the investigation of leisure activities in the coursebook as detailed in Table 6 is that some activities are mentioned repeatedly, such as travel and sport, while others are less frequent, like collecting dolls and star wars memorabilia and sunbathing (see Figure 9 below).

Figure 9: Frequency of mention of leisure activities in the coursebook

45

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

43

22

7 8

13

2

Frequency

Travel

Sport Holiday/sunbathing

Party/music/ Dancing TV/film/play

collecting

The most mentioned topic among leisure activities is travel (43 times in 12 units). It seems that for the coursebook writers travel was considered a «safe topic» (Gray, 2002) that is supposed to be admired and non-controversial all over the world; presumably, a topic that connects learners from every part of the world creating a standardised community out of standardised hobbies.

However, the way in which the writers have dealt with the theme of travel presents it as if it is easy and affordable for everyone. Issues related to the problems of obtaining visas and suffering from segregation in ports are ignored may be as westerners do not face this problem

when travelling or may be in order to preserve the rule of «aspirational content» (Gray, 2002, p. 161). The issue of travel, then, is addressed only from the perspective of the West, which could legitimate drawing the conclusion that the coursebook is «ethnocentric», to use Renner's (1997) terminology, in the sense of marginalizing the concerns of non-western local learners. Possible «ethnocentricity» in this context is related to writers' concern in dealing with the issue of travel only from the perspective of westerners not global audiences.

Sport, in turn, is a theme that is mentioned several times in H/I, as it is stated 22 times in the 12 units (see Figure 9). Sport is presented as a global practice, which makes it appear to be safe (Gray, 2002). However, the in-depth investigation shows that the kinds of sports mentioned are not available for all learners sufficiently all over the globe. For example, practicing golf, which is mentioned several times in the content, might not be possible for many learners even in Tunisia, which might inhibit the effective interaction of learners.

Certainly, it could be said that learners need to have an idea about several kinds of sport practiced around the globe. Nevertheless, following authenticity recommendations (Nunan, 1988; Banville, 2005), investing locally popular kinds of sport is better than dealing with kinds of sport rarely practiced by local users of the global coursebook. The point, then, is that it could be hard for learners to be engaged in talking about a topic with which they might have no sufficient previous experience. This is again one of the controversies of designing a coursebook for all the users of English around the world.

Such a finding could strengthen the idea that global coursebooks are tailored to meet the needs of westerners and, therefore, implementing it in non-western countries could be a form of loading it with a weight that it could not handle for very objective reasons related to the diverse complexities of diverse learning contexts. Such finding may give credit, again, to calls for degeneralisation and contextualisation of coursebooks (Block, 1991; Tomlinson,

2001; Hill, 2005). Dealing with leisure activities that are mainly related to a particular socioeconomic class could be seen as a kind of standardisation of hobbies that results from the worldwide penetration of globalisation. From this perspective, the global coursebook seems to be a globalisation agent that benefits the politically and economically powerful bloc, whose elite is thought to be working to preserve the state of the art favouring the West (Phillipson, 1992).

In addition to travel and sport, Figure 9 shows that other aspects of leisure activities are used in the content of H/I such as holiday and sunbathing (7 times), party, music, and dancing (8 times), watching TV, film, and play (13 times), and collecting (twice). Using these forms of youth culture could, to a certain extent, provide the coursebook with clients who want to see the world always bright even if it is not genuinely authentic, which means not closely linked to learners' local realities. It seems that there is an attempt to impose a particular vision of the world. A critical exploration reveals how limited indeed is the horizon that the coursebook suggests. However, this is done in a subtle way that may not be obvious for non-critical users and observers.

It seems that using leisure activities as a connectedness aspect seems to be a cosmetic change that embodies, whether consciously or unconsciously, ethnocentric orientations, which coincides with critical thought concerning the existence of the discourse of power in language (Fairclough, 1989) and ELT (Pennycook, 1994; Canagarajah, 1999; Rinvolucri, 1999).

4.3.2. The language issue

It seems that the writers of H/I were very committed to using what they called Standard English and British everyday English despite the existence of only two remarks to American

English (Units 3 and 4). There were only two instances of referring to another slightly different variety, which is American English. The absence of any other variety from what are called periphery countries (Pennycook, 1994) in spite of the rising importance of Asian varieties worldwide (Graddol, 2000) demonstrates a shortfall, or may be choice, of the writers to cover global varieties and, hence, to be really global at the level of language.

However, for practical reasons it could be stated that in order to preserve effective communication, users need to share a unified phonological code that connects people (Jenkins, 2000). One wonders whether marginalising global varieties of English is effective or not and, perhaps more importantly, is acceptable or not especially with the rising importance of Asian varieties. New Englishes are continuously and persistently gaining ground especially in Asia (Graddol, 2000), which makes the persistent use of a variety spoken by a very limited elite a hegemonic act (Phillipson, 1992). Such a neglect of New Englishes could deprive learners from the opportunity to benefit from intercultural information that could be provided by using various varieties, reflecting the real state of English worldwide or even the real language used in Anglo-American societies (Yule et al., 1992).

Additionally, the rise of English worldwide is expected to be fashioned mainly by Asians' use of it in business (Graddol, 2000), which means that the real need of learners practicing business is of Asian varieties, or at least an idea about them, viewing the economic advance of some Asian economies. Another rationale for the need of using world Englishes (Kachru, 1985) in ELT global coursebooks is the avoidance of the charges that global coursebooks promote stereotypes by presenting the UK and USA language variations as the most important ones and neglecting other varieties.

4.3.3. Global connectivity

Global connectivity is explored in terms of the frequency of mention of countries and continents in H/I. The results of the exploration of H/I in terms of use of global settings reveal that these settings are predominantly Western. Figure 10 illustrates this finding and provides the percentages of mention of other global settings.

Figure 10: Distribution of global settings in the coursebook

47%

4% 3%

18%

28%

America Asia Africa Australia Europe

In fact, 47% of the locations mentioned in this global coursebook are European compared to only 3% for Africa, for example. This sharp difference shows, again, the limitation of H/I to cater for a really global audience. What is interesting concerning global connectivity is the relative importance of the mention of Asian countries (18%), which may be to show awareness of the spread of English across non native contexts. It could be also a compensation for the numerical and functional misrepresentation of Asians in the coursebook.

It is worth noting also that 79% of the locations are Western, as 47% refer to Europe, 28% to America, and 4% to Australia. Such a dominance of Western locations could legitimate drawing the conclusion that H/I is ethnocentric as it promotes the dominance of

the West and pays partial consideration to the rest of the globe, which deprives the global coursebook from being really global.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it could be said, based on the content analysis, that H/I as a global coursebook, fails to be really global in terms of preserving inclusivity, avoiding inappropriacy, and investing in connectedness.

First, the coursebook is limited because, concerning inclusivity, women were shown in an image that does not reflect their diverse real situations around the globe, despite the `brightness' characterising this image, as manifested in diversity of roles and topics. As to racial balance it was, also, found to be superficial, as in terms of numbers as well as roles and topics, the writers of the coursebook marginalised coloured racial minorities.

Second, writers' concern for avoiding inappropriate issues in H/I was found to be problematic, as their attempt is not only unsuccessful, viewing the huge diversity of the global audience, but also hinders «authenticity». The problem of global coursebooks seems to be the necessity to avoid inappropriate topics while, at the same time, being relevant and authentic.

Third, the issue of investing in connectedness was found to be characterised by partiality. The data revealed that H/I has ethnocentric tendency in its representation of leisure activities, language varieties, and global locations. Therefore, it could be argued that the notion of the global coursebook is a fuzzy expression that is used only for commercial reasons.

In order to explore the perception of the users of H/I as to the issues related to the «globality» of the coursebook, this study will resort to another research method, which is the questionnaire.

Chapter Five: Analysis and discussion of questionnaire data 5.0. Introduction

This chapter will contain the results of the analysis and the discussion of the findings of the questionnaire in light of the literature review (see Chapter Two) and the discussion of the content of H/I in the previous chapter. This chapter is the second phase of the study where the notion of «globality» is investigated among the users. It seeks to answer the second research question that concerns learners' perception of the «globality» of H/I. Through the administration of the questionnaire, the aim was to find out from the students their perceptions of inclusivity, inappropriacy, and connectedness in H/I. For this reason this chapter is composed of three main sections focusing respectively on aspects of learners' perception of connectedness, inappropriacy, and inclusivity.

5.1. Learners' perception of connectedness

As far as connectedness is concerned the study explored learners' perception of four main issues. These cover the geography of the themes and language varieties that exist and should exist in the coursebook in addition to concentrating on what the learners think the coursebook can offer, as an agent of connectedness.

5.1.1. Learners' perception of topics

Using question 2.1 (Appendix A) to explore the themes that should be present in the coursebook according to the learners, 40% of the respondents replied that they prefer international topics, that is global themes, in comparison to only 12% who reported that they prefer purely American and British topics. Figure 11 illustrates these findings.

Figure 11: Participants' perception of what should be the kind of content in the coursebook

International Specific to Tunisia

International and Tunisian

British and American only

12%

26%

40%

22%

These rates reflect learners' interest in international or a mixture of international and Tunisian content. It could show also learners' discomfort with «ethnocentric» content in

global coursebooks, which coincides with Canagarajah (1999) findings and ^Rinvolucri(1999) claims discussed in Chapter Two. Such discomfort appeared in learners' distortion of

the content of their coursebooks as reported by Canagarajah (1999).

Surprisingly, almost one fourth (22%) of the participants chose the alternative `Specific to Tunisia', which reflects the desire of an important number of learners to learn through using content derived from their local settings.

In light of this finding and as the content analysis discussed in Chapter Four showed that H/I is predominantly European in terms of content, it could be deduced that it does not include the type of content that 62% of the respondents would like to have. Needless to mention that the glocal content, that is in the context of the target population investigated, `international and Tunisian' content, is preferred by 26% of the learners. Such finding gives

credit to calls of glocalisation (Gray, 2002) of content of ELT materials as far as this target population is concerned.

83% of them reported that they think the topics dealt with in H/I are western, and precisely, British (41%), European (24%), and American (18%). Thus it could be claimed that learners are aware of the ethnocentricity characterising the supposedly global coursebook they use. Figure 12 below presents the results.

Figure 12: Respondents' perception of specificity of topics in H/I.

24%

18%

0%

0%

17%

41%

America Britain

The world The Arab

world

North Africa

40% of the participants favoured international content (see Figure 11) while 17% of them (see Figure 12) see that the coursebook reflects international topics. Such results contradict what the learners report as their preferred English variety as far as the content is concerned. Thus, the suitability of H/I is questioned, as this study reflected a mismatch between learners' claimed preferences and the content of the material decided for them.

While 26% reported they preferred the localised content (see Figure 11), no one (0%) of the participants chose the alternatives `North African' or `The Arab world' as far as the topics dealt with in H/I are concerned. Authenticity of content is important for effective learning to occur (Nunan, 1988, 1991). However, the content analysis of H/I discussed in Chapter Four in addition to learners' perception of this content reveal absence of content that is derived from participants' immediate context.

Therefore, it could be said that H/I is not perceived by the learners as a really global coursebook, which explains the findings of the content analysis discussed in Chapter Four suggesting the coursebook to be primarily based on western topics.

5.1.2. Learners' perception of language varieties

55% of the participants in this study claimed that the coursebook used to teach English should contain international English and not British English only (15%) or American English (2%) (see Figure 13 below).

Figure 13: Preferred language varieties for the respondents

28%

55%

15%

2%

American English only

Asian Englishes

British English only

International English

This finding goes in parallel with the results that concerned the topics discussed in the
previous section in the sense of showing learners' tendency towards internationalisation or
«globality». The same finding contradicts what exists in H/I, which was found to contain
only two instances of American English and no instance of Asian varieties, as documented in
Chapter Four. Learners' preference of international English reveals that they are aware that
they need a global language that goes beyond the purely British or solely American varieties.
It is surprising also to find that more than 1/4 of the learners expressed their preference
of `Asian Englishes' to be present in the coursebook. However, as this question allowed the
respondents to tick more than one alternative, they selected `Asian Englishes' most of the

time in parallel with `international English'. This shows learners' awareness of the rising importance of Asian countries and the need to communicate with their people in English, which resonates Graddol's (2000) and Crystal's (2003) claims.

Interestingly, the content analysis of H/I did not show any instance of using Asian Englishes. Such a finding is another instance of the mismatch between the preferences of new generations of local users, explored in the questionnaire, and global coursebook's standardised and globally compromised content, as shown in the content analysis.

5.1.3. Perception of the coursebook's connectedness potential

44% of the participants reported that the coursebook prepares them to chat (22%) and correspond electronically (22%) (see Figure 14). Additionally, 6% claimed that the coursebook enables them to communicate with other Tunisian professionals while 18% chose the alternative `understand media in English'. Those who chose the alternative `negotiate with international partners represent 11% and those who chose translate legal documents are only 3%. Besides, 9% selected the alternative `read scientific research' and so is the rate for `read travel book'.

Figure 14: Respondents' perception of the value of H/I.

Communicate with other Tunisian professionals Understand media in English

Chat

Correspond electronically

Negotiate with international partners

Read scientific research Read travel book

Translate legal documents

9% 3% 6%

18%

9%

11%

22%

22%

The percentage of chatting and corresponding electronically (44%) shows, actually, the important position that the internet for communication holds in the lives of the respondents. Indeed, the respondents reported that the coursebook is helpful in preparing them to be part of a global community through English, whatever the variety used is.

It is not surprising that only 6% of the respondents reported that the coursebook prepares them to `Communicate with other Tunisian professionals' as this reflects the language situation in Tunisia characterised by the dominance of Arabic and French despite the fact that English is believed to be gaining ground (Battenburg, 1997; Daoud, 2001; Melliti, 2008).

Furthermore, only 3% of the participants claimed that H/I prepares them to `Translate legal documents' even though the coursebook content does not cater for this need. The

results for question 2.7. (Appendix A) indicate that the learners perceive the value of the coursebook to be primarily in communication.

Discussing these findings, it could be said that the responses lead to the conclusion that the coursebook meets the expectations of the learners only partially. They find, for instance, that the topics and language varieties used in H/I are different from what the participants stated. As for its «connecting» value, the coursebook is only appreciated because it allows the users to acquire communication skills. Such finding shows that it is practically impossible to find a global content that is «authentic» for diverse global users. Such a result does not only concern connectedness but also learners' perception of inappropriacy. The following section will explore the issue of «inappropriate» content.

5.2. Learners' perception of inappropriacy

The majority of the participants in this study expressed openness as far as mentioning what literature identified as inappropriate issues to be avoided in global coursebooks. The claim is so as 62% of the respondents agree when it comes to mentioning inappropriate issues (23% of them strongly) while 38% disagree (20% of them strongly). Figure 15 shows the results in detail.

Figure 15: Respondents' perception of mentioning inappropriate issues in H/I.

Strongly

agree
23%

Strongly
disagree

20%

Disagree
18%

Agree
39%

In question 2.5, the respondents were asked to express their opinion about whether they agree or not about mentioning some suggested inappropriate issues. This finding shows that publishers' attempt to avoid these topics is useless as the majority (62%) of the questioned users of H/I in IBLV accept them. However, there are some topics considered inappropriate by the participants as indicated in Figure 16 below.

Figure 16: Participants' opinion regarding mentioning inappropriate issues in H/I.

Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree

70
68

66
64
62

60 58 56 54 52 50 48

46
44

42
40

38 36 34 32

30
28
26

24

22

20 18 16 14

12

10

8
₄6

2

0

AIDS Alcohol

Anarchy Divorce

Genetic engineering Narcotics

Politics Pork

Racism Religion

Stereotypes Violence

Israel and six pointed stars Extra-marital relationships (EMR)

Terrorism

The following section will present in details the percentages of appropriate issues as reported by the participants prior to discussing the possible reasons behind their choices.

5.2.1. Appropriate issues for learners

The participants expressed that they had no objection to mentioning AIDS (82%), alcohol (62%), anarchy (68%), divorce (80%), genetic engineering (80%), narcotics (61%),

politics (62%), pork (66%), racism (84%), religion (61%), stereotypes (80%), and violence (60%), which shows that they do not see these topics as inappropriate for them.

In fact, 82% of the respondents reported that they agree (58% of them strongly) on mentioning AIDS in the content while only 18% disagree (6% of them strongly). As far as alcohol is concerned, 62% claimed that they agree (42% of them strongly) on mentioning it in the coursebook while 38% disagreed (14% of them strongly). When asked about their views on mentioning anarchy, 68% of the participants agreed (18% of them strongly) whereas 32% disagreed (6% of them strongly).

Asking the participants about their views as to mentioning divorce in the coursebook, 80% agreed (28% of them strongly) whereas only 20% disagreed (6% of them strongly). Additionally, 80% of the participants agreed (38% of them strongly) on the idea of mentioning genetic engineering in the coursebook while 20% disagreed (8% of them strongly). 61% of the participants agreed (20% of them strongly) on mentioning narcotics in the coursebook whereas 39% disagreed (18% of them strongly).

Additionally, The respondents were asked about their views as to mentioning political issues in the content of the coursebook. 62% reported that they agree on this (23% of them strongly) while 38% disagreed (18% of them strongly). 66% of the participants agreed (20% of them strongly) on mentioning pork in the coursebook whereas 34% disagreed (16% of them strongly). The participants were questioned about their perception as to mentioning racism in the coursebook and 84% of them agreed (35% of them strongly) while only 16% disagreed (10% of them strongly).

The majority (61%) of the participants agreed (25% of them strongly) on mentioning religion in the coursebook whereas 39% disagreed (20% of them strongly). When asked about the mention of stereotypes in the coursebook, 80% of the respondents agreed (26% of

them strongly) whereas 20% disagreed (10% of them strongly). Learners were asked also about their perception of mentioning violence in the coursebook. The results show that 60% agree (12% of them strongly) while 40% disagree (24% of them strongly).

The results of the content analysis discussed in Chapter Four (see Appendix G) show that AIDS was mentioned only once and anarchy, genetic engineering, narcotics, pork, and stereotypes were avoided in H/I. However, an important majority do not perceive them as «inappropriate» although Viney (2000) and Gray (2002) identified them as issues avoided in global textbooks for «inappropriacy» reasons. It seems inappropriate, then, to avoid talking about what local learners see appropriate.

This suggests that, as far as Tunisian learners participating in this study, there is no need for book publishers to tell book writers what to include and what not. The questioned Tunisian learners may perceive studying English as a «fresh» experience, which means that the inclusion of new topics leads to the construction of new ideas and the opening of new horizons. The wrong decision of excluding these topics from the content of H/I could be the result of publishers' attempt to establish a global compromise as these issues may not be tolerated in some other parts of the world. Hence, publishers' decision to avoid them is not supported as far as the target population investigated in this study is concerned.

Additionally, the respondents are found to be tolerant concerning the investment in themes pertaining to politics, religion, and violence while the content analysis showed partial references to these issues in H/I. Literature on «inappropriacy» also identified these themes as to be avoided in ELT content directed to global audiences (Viney, 2000; Gray, 2002), which is found to be irrelevant as far as the target population investigated in this study is concerned. Such a controversy is, again, the result of creating a one size fits all coursebook (Gray, 2002) that seeks to meet the expectations of globally different users.

62% of the participants said they agree with mentioning alcohol in the content of H/I, which may legitimate the fact that the publishers of H/I mentioned it using 11 referring items (see Table 5). Hence, the publishers are «right» in their decision to mention alcoholic beverages when designing the content as far as the particular population investigated is concerned. However, this success seems to be a coincidence as H/I is not designed specifically for Tunisian learners.

Therefore, the publishers are (coincidentally) successful only concerning mentioning the issues of alcoholic beverages and divorce, as the rest of the issues identified as «appropriate» by the respondents are either totally or partially avoided in the content of H/I (see Appendix H).

Actually, not all the suggested fifteen topics were identified as «appropriate» by the participants as three of them were seen as «inappropriate» to include in the coursebook (see Figure 16).

5.2.2. inappropriate issues for learners

In this sub-section, the rates related to learners' perception of inappropriate issues will be presented before discussing them. The respondents identified three themes as inappropriate, which are: Israel and six pointed stars (74% disagreed about mentioning them), out of marriage relationships (62%), and terrorism (53%). This suggests that there is a limit to learners' tolerance concerning what they perceive as inappropriate.

As to mentioning the issue of Israel and six pointed stars, 74% of the respondents disagreed (57% of them strongly) while 26% agreed (18% of them strongly). Another controversial issue that learners were asked about their perception as to mentioning it in the content of the coursebook is out of marriage relationships (hereafter OMR). 62% of the

participants disagreed (32% of them strongly) while 38% agreed (10% of them strongly). Moreover, 47% of the respondents agreed (22% of them strongly) on mentioning terrorism in the coursebook while 53% disagreed (38% strongly).

With reference to the content analysis discussed in Chapter Four, avoiding references to Israel and six pointed stars and to terrorism is successful on the part of publishers, which means that it coincides with the respondents' feelings about the issue. In fact, there was no mention of these two «inappropriate» issues in the content of H/I. The results show Tunisian users of this coursebook do not agree with their inclusion, which coincides with the perception of the investigated IBLV learners concerning inappropriacy. It seems that refraining from mentioning Israel and six pointed stars is part of the ideological and media atmosphere surrounding the learners that refuse normalisation of relationships with Israel.

However, the publishers are not successful as far as mentioning OMR in the content of H/I, as the majority of the respondents expressed their disagreement with mentioning this sensitive issue. Learners' views map, in fact, with the claims of Pennycook (1994) and Ellis (1990) who identified OMR's as «inappropriate» for Muslim users of global coursebooks.

It is worth mentioning also that the total rates of `Strongly agree' (23%) and `Strongly disagree' (20%) are close, which shows again the existence of controversy about the question of inappropriacy. This could suggest that the perception of what is culturally (in)appropriate is not only derived from the social conventions but also from local individual attitudes. Such a reality makes the attempt of publishers to produce globally integratable coursebooks a difficult task, which suggests that local or glocal ones may be more relevant to local users.

It can be said, with reference to the content analysis discussed in Chapter Four and to the findings of the questionnaire, that publishers' handling of inappropriacy is predominantly

non-successful as data shows they are making wrong guesses about the reaction of learners on a global level. (see Table 7).

Table 7: Publishers' success with handling inappropriacy

	Successful	unsuccessful
AIDS		X
Alcohol	X
Anarchy		X
Divorce	X
Out of marriage relationships		X
Genetic engineering		X
Israel and six pointed stars	X
Narcotics		X
Politics		X
Pork		X
Racism		X
Religion		X
Stereotypes		X
Terrorism	X
Violence		X
Total	4	11

The table shows that concerning «inappropriacy», the publishers were found to be successful only with handling 4 out of the 15 explored themes. Their advice to coursebook writers to avoid alcohol, divorce, Israel and six pointed stars, and terrorism as «inappropriate» was justified judging from the results obtained in this study. However, such a low score reveals the controversy of designing global material, as the compromise that the publishers made is found to be not matching the positions taken by the particular learners investigated in this study.

In addition to connectedness and inappropriacy, learners' perception of the extent to which the publishers are inclusive is an important issue to be investigated. For this reason the following section will tackle this question.

5.3. Learners' perception of inclusivity

Inclusivity was explored in terms of learners' awareness of the existence of diverse cultures as well as aspects of learners' individual lives in the content of H/I.

5.3.1. Cultural inclusivity

The respondents were asked to rank the extent to which they see features of American, Asian, British, International, North African, and youth cultures are included in H/I. The results are summarised in Figure 17 below.

Figure 17: Perception of the cultural content presented in H/I.

American
culture

North African
culture

Asian cultures British culture International

culture

Youth culture

72 72
															65
										54
46 43
24 24			24
							20			18					20
							14			16						16
											10					7
6							6 6 5 4 4 2			2						6 6		4
0 0								0		0						2 2 0 0

100

95

90

85

80

75

70

65

60

55

50

45

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

0

1

2

3

4

5

Bearing in mind that the levels 0 and 1 refer to low, 2 and 3 refer to medium, and 4 and 5 refer to high, the results showed that the learners using H/I identified highly and lowly included cultures.

5.3.1.1. `High' cultures

The analysis of the questionnaire data presented in Figure 17 revealed that learners are aware of the fact that H/I presents predominantly British culture (70% of the respondents scored it `High'), youth culture (81%), international culture (72%), and American culture (70%). Concerning British culture, 86% of the participants felt that its inclusion in the

coursebook is `High', 10% said it is `Medium', and only 4% reported that it is `Low'. Youth culture was explored also and 81% of the respondents claimed its presence is `High' while 11% chose the alternative `Medium' and 8% chose the alternative `Low'.

Regarding the presence of features of international culture, 72% stated that it is `High', 26% `Medium', and 2% `Low'. 70% of the participants claimed that the representation of H/I of American culture is `High' while 30% claimed it is `Medium' and 0% claimed it is `Low' (see Figure 17).

Being a British coursebook used to teach English, H/I is expected to include basically British culture and the learners are found to be aware of this reality. Learners' awareness of the «Britishness» of the content of H/I might result in resistance to the material as contended by Canagarajah (1999).

Additionally, learners scored youth culture highly in terms of its inclusion in the content of H/I, which shows their awareness of the aspirational content (Gray, 2002) or what Rinvolucri (1999) called women-magaziney content. This shows, also, that the publishers are successful in convincing the users around the world that youth culture is a feature of «globality». It is as if the participants did not perceive the content as dominated by youth culture, they would not score it high. The fact that they chose this alternative reveals that perhaps they perceive themselves as part of a global youth community. Hence, investing in youth culture through incorporating music, films, parties, holidays, technology, and internet, as documented in the content analysis of H/I, contributes to framing H/I as a global coursebook by the participants in this study.

Relying heavily on British and youth cultures, in H/I seems to have led the participants to perceive the presence of international and American cultures as high. One possible explanation for this is that under the «globality» conditions the borders between British,

youth, and American cultures are blurred (Giddens, 1990). This may give credit to Berger's (1998) claim that globalisation is the dominance of the powerful and privileged culture.

Therefore, it could be said that what the respondents identified as highly included cultures are only western cultures despite the fact that they see international culture as included. This perception shows how visible these aspects of «global culture» in the content and could reveal that learners do not distinguish between western and international cultures due to globalisation, which is based on blurring of boundaries (Phillipson, 1992; Guiddens, 1990). The content analysis discussed in Chapter Four in addition to previous literature on the issue detected the dominance of western culture in global coursebooks.

The high inclusivity of western cultures is found in the content analysis of H/I to be preserved at the expense of representing other cultures as suggested in the following subsection.

5.3.1.2. `Low' cultures

As detailed in Figure 17, 67% of the participants perceive the inclusivity of Asian cultures as low. Additionally, 92% of the respondents reported that North African culture is lowly represented in H/I.

As to Asian cultures, 67% of the participants claimed that their presence is `Low', 25% that it is `Medium', and 8% that it is `High'. 92% of the questioned participants said that the presence of North African culture is `Low' in H/I in comparison to 8% who said it is `Medium' and 0% who said it is `High'.

Concerning the low presence of these two cultures, the users were found to be aware of the absence of non-western cultures in the coursebook they use. However, such finding

concurs with the results of the content analysis detecting H/I as having ethnocentric tendency.

The findings also may provide evidence for Said's (1978) theory about the representation of low cultures by the West. Considering his claims about the ideological and imperial motives behind representing the Orient in a pejorative way in the writings of the West, it could be said that the low representation of Asian and North African cultures in H/I may not be innocent. Regardless of whether this claim is right or wrong, no one can deny the possibility that learners from Asian and North African cultures resist the content of H/I even through silence.

5.3.2. The inclusivity of learners' individual lives

The participants were asked to identify the closeness of the content of H/I to their situations. Figure 18 details the results.

Figure 18: Closeness of the content of H/I to learners' situations.

Closeness of learners situations to the
content of H/I

13% 7% 11%

25%

25%

19%

0

1

2

3

4

5

The results indicate that 44% of the participants reported that the closeness of the content of H/I to their situations in terms of hopes, daily life, jobs, problems, concerns, and leisure activities is medium while only 38% said it is high and 18% said it is low.

This means that 78% of the respondents perceive the coursebook as moderately close to their individual lives. However, the percentages for each of the explored aspects of learners' individual lives vary as indicated in Figure 19.

Figure 19: Reported closeness of the content of H/I to learners.

0

6

14

24

Hopes

28 28

22

2

30

Daily life

23

0 1 2 3 4 5

16

7

0

7

19

29

Jobs

32

13

27

16

24

Problems

13

16

4

6

8

14

Concerns

34

32

6

5

4

12

Leisure activities

28

31

20

0

4

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Figure 19 shows the existence of three degrees of closeness; high, medium and low.

5.3.2.1. High closeness

When asked to rate the degree of closeness between the content of H/I and their own situations, 56% of the respondents claimed that, in terms of hopes, the closeness is `High' while 38% said that it is `Medium' and 6% reported that it is `Low' (see Figure 19). Additionally, 51% of the respondents reported that the closeness between the leisure activities they practice and those mentioned in the coursebook is `High' while 40% said it is `Medium' and 9% claimed it is `Low'.

These findings coincide with the claims of Gray (2002) who stated that the publishers attempt to provide aspirational content in global coursebooks. As discussed in Chapter Four, providing aspirational content may be perceived as advantageous and disadvantageous. The advantage is motivating the learners who perceive the coursebook as relevant to their own situations as far as the target population investigated in this study is concerned. The disadvantage is that depending solely or even predominantly on aspirational content may deprive the users from other, not necessarily aspirational, topics (Rinvolucri, 1999).

Hence it could be stated that the learners do not perceive the coursebook as sufficiently connected to their immediate concerns. Such a situation could be the result of writers' attempts to produce a sanitised content that is as close as possible to the global users. The findings concerning the inclusivity of this desired global content show that it is not reached for the target population of this study due to the diversity of audiences for which the writers write.

In fact, the majority that reveals the closeness of learners' hopes and leisure activities to the content of H/I is not clear, being below 60%. This is so because most of them generally

preferred to select the medium closeness, which means the levels 3 and 4 on the scale provided in the questionnaire as shown in the following sub-section.

5.3.2.2. Medium closeness

Figure 19 shows that the participants felt the medium closeness between their own situations and the content of H/I in terms of daily life (53%), jobs (48%), and concerns (47%). Such a state of affairs could be explained by the fact that the writers try to design a coursebook for globally diverse audience.

As far as the aspects of the daily lives of the respondents are concerned, 24% of the participants claimed that their presence is `Low' compared to 53% who said `Medium' and 23% who chose `High'. The participants were also asked about the closeness between their jobs and the jobs mentioned in H/I. 45% of the respondents said that the closeness is `High' while 48% claimed it is `Medium' and 7% said it is `Low' as shown in Figure 19. The exploration of the closeness of learners' concerns to the coursebook (see Figure 19) shows also that 38% claimed it is `High' while 47% said it is `Medium' and 14% said it is `Low'.

Discussing these results, it could be said that it is hardly expected from a global coursebook to reflect the lives of all the learners all around the globe, as it is practically impossible. However, the partial match between learners' daily lives, jobs, and concerns, on the one hand, and the content of H/I on the other hand could be explained by the closeness characterising the Tunisian context and Western way(s) of life.

What may explain this medium closeness between the participants of this study and H/I in terms of daily life, jobs, and concerns is writers' quest to produce a moderate coursebook in terms of «authenticity». This could be perceived as a kind of success for the writers if they

were able to find a common ground that moderately unites global users, which means that they managed to find a working compromise between all the users.

However, an in-depth analysis of this finding shows that while this fact might guarantee product integration and profits for the publishers, it is an open question whether such a medium closeness is sufficient for the diverse global learners or not. Additionally, this moderate closeness is not reached with a clear cut majority (above 60%), which may support the «sanitisation of content» thesis discussed by Renner (1997), Gray (2002), and Toms (2004).

Such a sanitisation of content does not seem to have preserved the high closeness of the content to learners' daily life, jobs, and concerns as recommended by «authenticity» proponents (Nunan, 1988). Being medium in terms of closeness to learners' situations, H/I seems to be not sufficiently inclusive of the users and, hence, perhaps facilitative of their effective learning.

What may support this claim is that the respondents reported that their problems are not carefully reflected in the coursebook, as shown in the following sub-section.

5.3.2.3. Low closeness

The participants reported that the closeness of the content of H/I to their problems is low. In fact, 43% claimed that the presence of their problems is `Low' while 37% said `Medium' and 20% `High' (see Figure 19).

This means that the participants think their problems are not efficiently represented in the content, which makes the coursebook non inclusive and non authentic as far as this aspect is concerned. If authenticity is valuable for effective learning of a second language (Nunan, 1988), then, avoiding talking about the authentic problems encountered by the local users

deprives the learners from opportunities to develop their language skills and probably to increase their motivation to learn.

It may be argued that learners' language skills could be developed using other issues, but the basic question is why not ceasing the opportunity of talking about learners' local problems (Canagarajah, 1999). One answer to this question is that the publishers avoid using non «aspirational content» (Gray, 2002) seemingly because it does not help the increase of their profits. Hence, it could be said that commercial gains dominate the decisions of the writers instead of pedagogical goals. It could be true that dealing with learners problems is boring and distressing.

However, avoiding learners' problems not only alienates some learners but also supports the idea that global coursebooks present a utopian world (Canagarajah, 1999; Rinvolucri, 1999) totally characterised by harmony and comfort. This problem would not be encountered if the coursebook used was designed by local English language practitioners who have clear and close ideas about local learners, certainly provided that they do not reproduce a predominantly Western perspective.

To conclude this section, it could be said that the participants are aware of the fact that the coursebook is inclusive primarily of western cultures not learners' local ones. In fact, such a finding is expected if examined against the results of the content analysis of H/I demonstrating the coursebook to have «ethnocentric» tendency.

Additionally, the majority of the participants (78%) claim that the closeness between their immediate contexts and the content of H/I is medium. Therefore, it could be concluded that the learners perceive the coursebook to be only moderately inclusive of their lives, which is the result of designing one coursebook for the entire world. Such a finding coincides with the literature on this issue as it is claimed that global coursebooks are prone to being

reflective primarily of Western ideologies (Phillipson, 1992; Canagarajah, 1999) and are merely characterised by sanitisation of content for commercial reasons (Renner, 1997; Gray, 2002; Toms, 2004).

Conclusion

This chapter contained the analysis and discussion of the findings of the questionnaire in light of the literature review and the content analysis of H/I. It sought to answer the question of the perception of the participants of the «globality» of Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) in terms of connectedness, inappropriacy, and inclusivity.

Learners' expectations as far as connectedness and inappropriacy are concerned were found to be partially handled by the publishers. In fact, the topics and the language varieties used in H/I are found to be different from those stated by the participants. This is actually not a very surprising finding as literature on this issue detected the generalisation characterising the content of global coursebooks (Gray, 2002). The most important value of H/I according to the respondents was in communication skills that they report to need when surfing the internet.

Additionally, this study documented match between H/I and the claims of the participants as far as inappropriacy is concerned only in 4 out of 15 issues, which means only in 26.6% of the cases. Accordingly, it is surprising that the participants expressed tolerance as to mentioning some supposedly «inappropriate» issues like racism, alcohol, politics, and pork, which provides evidence that avoiding mentioning them is not necessary as far as the Tunisian users investigated in this study are concerned.

Besides, the participants were found to be aware of the partiality characterising the inclusiveness of the coursebook in terms of culture and the closeness of the content to

learners' situations. In fact, this study provides evidence that it is hardly expected from a global coursebook like H/I to be inclusive of diverse local cultures and daily lives of all the peoples of the globe.

Putting into consideration all of these findings, it could be said that the notion of `the global coursebook' is a commercial expression that does not necessarily mean coursebooks' reflection of global interests and use of global contexts in the content. The implementation of the principles of investing in connectedness, avoiding inappropriacy, and preserving inclusivity were found to be hardly practical in H/I as a supposedly «global» coursebooks.

Chapter Six: Conclusion

6.0. Introduction

This concluding chapter will summarise the major findings of the research in addition to the contribution and the limitations of the study, the suggestions for other research, and some recommendations.

6.1. Major findings

The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which an example of supposedly global coursebooks is really global in terms of content in addition to exploring learners' perception of the global aspect of the global coursebook H/I. For this reason two research questions were asked:

1 To what extent is Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) global?

2 What are learners' perceptions as to the global aspects of the global coursebook?

With regard to the extent of «globality» in the global coursebook H/I, the content analysis enabled the researcher to conclude that the publishers are not successful in designing a working global compromise between investing in connectedness, avoiding inappropriacy, and preserving inclusivity. Based on these findings, 3^rd level learners using Headway Intermediate (Soars & Soars, 2003) at IBLV were asked about their perception of «globality» as manifested in using connectedness, avoiding inappropriacy, and preserving inclusivity.

As far as connectedness is concerned, the participants in this study reported that H/I only partially meets their expectations concerning language varieties and topics. The study was able to find also that learners are satisfied with the way communication was handled in the coursebook, as the majority of them claimed that it prepares them to chat and correspond

electronically. One states this conclusion with some reservations on the real kind of language used in chatting and electronic correspondence.

As to inappropriacy, comparing learners' attitudes to the results of the content analysis led to the conclusion that the publishers of H/I are not successful in handling it. They avoided talking about various issues tolerated by the local users investigated and mentioned Out of marriage relationships, a theme that the learners perceive as inappropriate,.

With regard to the question of inclusivity, respondents were found to be aware that H/I reflects predominantly Western cultures not local and periphery ones. Besides, it was found also that learners do not find the coursebook highly close to their immediate contexts. Instead, the closeness was reported to be medium.

6.2. Contribution of the study

This study could contribute to the understanding of the issues surrounding «globality» in one global coursebook through an exploration of the content in the direction of discovering its real relation with the notion of «globality». Additionally, this study could provide insights as to the way the users of an example of a global coursebook perceive its acclaimed «globality» as an ELT globally distributed teaching material.

The findings of this study could help the institution using H/I, which is Bourguiba Institute for Living Languages (IBLV), as well as other English language teaching institutions in the private sector, understand the possible match and mismatch between learners' expectations and the content they receive. It is on the basis of this study and the like that the suitability of coursebooks could be decided.

6.3. Limitations of the study

This work encompassed some limitations mainly as a result of exploring only one global coursebook and a culturally homogeneous target population. In fact, a clearer and quite generalisable idea about the content of global coursebooks as well as learners' perceptions of them could be better attained by investigating various coursebooks and culturally different users.

6.4. Suggestions for further research

It is suggested for further research on «globality» in the global coursebook to use case studies to identify and focus on possible learners' resistance to content in the Tunisian context and to support the findings with ethnographic data explaining them. Investigating learners' resistance and the reasons behind such a problem could be helpful in understanding possible failure in learning a foreign language.

In addition, it is suggested to investigate other aspects of the global coursebook and especially to focus on the representation of different cultural content in different global coursebooks using a qualitative research tool. Such an investigation could widen teachers' understanding of what coursebooks communicate to students.

Besides, interviewing the authors and the publishers to explore their perspectives as to compromising in global coursebooks is also an invaluable research avenue. Such a research could help understanding the motives behind publishers' and authors' decisions as far as the global coursebook is concerned, which could support or deny the necessity of (g)local coursebooks.

Additionally, providing more research on the issue of «authenticity» could provide evidence for localisation of ELT coursebooks. The claim is so as conducting case studies

comparing learning using «authentic» material and learning using «non-authentic» material could be decisive as far as «globality» is concerned. Such case studies could provide evidence as to the (non)suitability of «authentic material», which could provide ideas concerning the importance of localisation, being one aspect of «authenticity».

6.5. Recommendations

Viewing the non-suitability characterising the content of H/I as an example of a global coursebook, it seems important for the administration to take at least one of the following measures.

1 Produce locally designed coursebooks.

Designing local coursebooks (i.e. investing features of local cultures of users) to be used in teaching English in Tunisia even in the private sector could help overcome the weaknesses of global ones documented in this study. Local coursebooks could be more relevant to local learners in terms of recognising local connectedness needs, avoiding only local inappropriate issues, and being inclusive primarily of local communities for more effective learning. Such measure could be promoted by establishing various research units in the English language departments focusing on conducting studies on coursebooks evaluation and design in the direction of recognising the importance of localisation of materials.

2 Recommending coursebooks specifically designed for local learners from global
coursebooks major publishers.

Such measure could provide the learners with glocal coursebooks that are tailored specifically for particular learners. This glocalisation process is valuable for meeting the expectations of the learners, which permits effective learning to take place.

As far as the recommendations for the teachers are concerned, it seems important for them to be aware of the controversy characterising the issue of global coursebooks. Until the realisation of the previously recommended administrative measures, teachers and teacher educators are suggested to take the following procedures.

1 Promoting teacher autonomy.

What is meant by this is avoiding teachers' `slavery' to coursebooks. As the results of this study revealed, chatting and corresponding electronically is perceived to be highly valued by the respondents, which presents an important opportunity to avoid the limitations of coursebooks and to be as close as possible to learners' preferred learning topics and styles. What is meant by this is that teachers are invited to exploit any new productive opportunity to help learners learn «better» by avoiding the fossilisation of topics and activities in coursebooks. Teachers can new phenomena, especially technological ones such as facebook and Twitter, as a vehicle for effective learning.

2 Training teachers to adapt coursebooks materials.

As the publishers of global coursebooks do not have a clear idea about what is appropriate and what is not in the Tunisian context, teachers may adapt the content on the basis of their knowledge of their learners and their shared cultural values. This could help them make the content as relevant and motivating as possible to the learners.

To sum up, teachers and coursebook writers are suggested to (g)localise coursebooks in order to provide learners with what they need and what they can deal with. As a phase prior to the realisation of this procedure, teachers and trainers are recommended to promote teacher autonomy and to resort to appropriation techniques.

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Appendix A: Questionnaire for learners

University of Manouba 2009-2010

English department

Research project: MA Thesis

Researcher: Mimoun ^MellitiSupervisor: Dr. Faiza Derbel

Questionnaire for learners

This is a questionnaire that attempts to study the issue of globality in global coursebooks among a cohort of English language learners at the private sector. This research is going to be used only for academic purposes and all answers will be anonymous.

Thank you for your collaboration.

Section 1:

1.1. Gender: Female Male

1.2. Educational level:

Baccalaureate Maitrise Licence Other:

1.3. Do you have a job? Yes No

1.3.1. If yes, what is your occupation

1.3.2. If yes, do you need English in your occupation? Yes No

1.4. What kind of English do you think you will need in the future?

General English English for Tourism Other: ...

Business English Scientific English

Section 2:

2.1. Do you think that in terms of content an English textbook should include themes which are (you may tick more than one alternative)

International

Specific to Tunisia

International and Tunisian

British and American only

2.2. Do you think Headway Intermediate should include (you may tick more than one alternative)

American English only Asian Englishes

British English only International English

2.3. To what extent does Headway Intermediate include features of the following cultures according to the following scale?

Circle number where applicable. 00= Lowest

05= Highest

								Rank
2.3.1. American culture		00		01		02		03		04		05
2.3.2. Asian cultures		00		01		02		03		04		05
2.3.3. British culture		00		01		02		03		04		05
2.3.4. International culture		00		01		02		03		04		05
2.3.5. North African culture		00		01		02		03		04		05
2.3.6. Youth culture	00		01		02		03		04		05
2.3.7. Other: .	00		01		02		03		04		05

2.4. To what extent do you find in Headway parallels with your own situation?

				Rank
2.4.1. Hopes	00	01	02	03	04	05
2.4.2. Daily life	00	01	02	03	04	05
2.4.3. Jobs	00	01	02	03	04	05
2.4.4. Problems	00	01	02	03	04	05
2.4.6 Concerns	00	01	02	03	04	05
2.4.7. Leisure activities	00	01	02	03	04	05

2.5. Should these topics be mentioned in the coursebook? Please tick as applicable to Headway.

	Strongly agree	Agree	Disagree	Strongly disagree
2.5.1. AIDS
2.5.2. Alcohol
2.5.3. Anarchy
2.5.4. Divorce
2.5.5. Out of marriage relationships
2.5.6. Genetic engineering
2.5.7. Israel and six pointed stars
2.5.8. Narcotics
2.5.9. Politics
2.5.10. Pork
2.5.11. Racism
2.5.12. Religion
2.5.13. Stereotypes
2.5.14. Terrorism
2.5.15. Violence

2.6. Do you think the topics dealt with in Headway Intermediate are specific to (you may tick more than one alternative)

America Britain The world

The Arab world North African Europe

2.7. Do you think the materials in Headway Intermediate prepare you to

Communicate with other Tunisia professionals

Understand media in English

Chat

Correspond electronically

Negotiate with international partners

Read scientific research articles

Read travel book

Translate legal documents

	Presence	Role	Topics
Unit 1: it's a wonderful world	8	mother/student/ celebrity/ internet fan, scientist/ athlete/ mother/	job /leaving for school/ goodwill ambassador/wonders of the world/ Olympic games/ being late/
Unit 2: get happy	23	Caricature of mother/ laughing/ designer/girlfriend/ clown/ practicing aerobics, jogging, basketball player, yoga practitioner, skiing/ tourist/eating/	teenagers / happiness/ jobs/ love /job/ sport/travel/not answering the phone/

Unit 3: Telling tales

Unit 4: Doing the right thing

15

21

Wife/mother/computer expert/ /tourist/talking/ talking/

Caricature of mother/ talking/ mother/ wife/grandmother/ students/ eating/ visitor/waitress/ customer/

Coming from job/tale/job/ holiday/love story +horror books/acquaintance/

at home/teens & parents/duties/ shopping/

advice/manners/manners/ travel/ in restaurant/in restaurant/

Unit 5: On the move

Unit 6: I just love it

6

8

Caricature of mother/wife/ young women/travel agency owner/ women/tourist/

host, guest, friend, mother/ friend/ /angry /White immigrant/police officer/

at home/shopping/ arranging to meet/holidays/everyday English

Student visitor/ correspondence/talking/not talking /New York/hotels/ prisoner

escape/

Unit 7: The world of work

5

Job applicant/trapeze artist/ at home/secretary/car

worker/mother/

Job interview/dream jobs/ looking at the sunset/on the phone/ demonstration/ looking after daughter/

Unit 8: Just imagine

Unit 9: Relationships

10

13

Caricature of tourist/

immigrant/job applicant/flight attendant, receptionist,

celebrating/ wife/food provider/

caricature of wife/relationships expert/ magazine readers/ wives/ veterinary, mother/ women/ interviewee/

Imagination/immigrating to a sunny place/job interview/ winning the lottery/ boredom/charity

buying a house/relationships/ falling in love with a celebrity/problems with husband/holiday with friends/ family problems/kinds of personality/family/

Unit 10: Obsession

Unit 11: Tell me about it

2

8

Cellist/dolls collector/

Tourist/singer/mother/secretary, boss/caricature of woman/ old women/

Lifelong passion/ collecting/

A stranger in town/Madonna/ family/ schedule/being in love/ age/

Unit 12: Life's great events

9

Lover/wife/ passer-by/ wife/neighbour/ mothers/ grandmother/

Marriage/acquaintance/saying sorry/marriage problems/ complaining from neighbours/giving birth/deafness/

Total number of women represented: 128

	Presence	Role	Topics
Unit 1: it's a wonderful world	21	caricatures/immigrant/ astronaut/singer/president/ teacher/father/ internet fan, tourists, father, grandfather/ father/	Acquaintance/origin/reaching the moon/assassination/prison/ teaching/breakfast conversation/ Wonders of the world/having breakfast/
Unit 2: get happy	21	Father/ laughing/ lawyer/ paper boy/passer-by/tourist/ clown/fisher, basketball, golf, mountain biker, snow border, jogging, football, aerobics/	teenagers /being happy/being busy/happiness/jobs/ travel/ jobs/ sport and leisure/
Unit 3: Telling tales	10	Husband/warrior/tourist/ artists/ talking/lover, friends, /	Cooking/tale/holiday/biography/ Harry Potter+ Hemingway books/acquaintance/
Unit 4: Doing the right thing	15	Father/ friends/waiter/ businessmen, eating / host/ customer/	Parents' duties/planning a trip/ job/manners/ travel/ in restaurant/
Unit 5: On the move	3	Husband/tourist/tourist/	Shopping/hotels/travel/
Unit 6: I just love it	8	Old man/father/brother/ passerby/angry/cook, waiter, astronaut/	Appearance/hosting a student visitor/correspondence/ talking/ not talking/pizza/
Unit 7: The world of work	33	Caricature of a thief, interviewer, job interviewer/ police officer/ Nobel Prize winner, medal giver/ car workers/ boxers/ hurricane hunters, iron workers/ grandfather/phone caller/	Jobs/ prisoner escape/ Nobel Prize/demonstration/ boxing/ dream jobs/ holiday/ appointment/
Unit 8: Just imagine	13	Immigrant, friend/husband/ men/ caricatures of driver & servant/ men/man/husband/	Going to a sunny country/ encouraging wife in job interview/winning the lottery/spending money/ workers unloading aids truck/charity/being broke
Unit 9: Relationships	9	Caricature of husband, marketing officer/ husbands/ actor/men/	Buying a house/ holiday with friends/ family problem/ kinds of personalities/
Unit 10: Obsession	5	men/father/eccentric individual/Star Wars collector/	Drinking ones beer/banning son's phone/fake Hollywood star/ collecting/
Unit 11: Tell me about it	6	Receptionist/lover/caricature of Uncle Sam/ men/	Stranger in town/being in love/knowing the world/ trainers/
Unit 12: Life's great events	14	Husband/husband, friend/ complaining neighbour, police officer/ drunk and gambler husband/ men/singer/passer-by/	Marriage/acquaintance/ family problems/ strange birth/ singing/ apologising/

Total of men represented: 149

Appendix D: The number, the roles, and the topics related to Whites

	Presence	Roles	Topics
Unit 1: it's a wonderful world	18	drinking/singer/ father, daughter / tourists/ daughter, father, grandfather/ family members/	Acquaintance/assassination/ going to school/ travel/wonders of the world/ everyday English/
Unit 2: get happy	43	caricatures/ laughing/ lawyer/paper boy/ designer, clowns, patient/ players/	Teenagers/happiness/ business/ happiness/jobs/diverse sports/
Unit 3: Telling tales	19	Husband, wife/ computer expert/ tourists/ artists/ talking/ talking/	Cooking/job/holiday/ biography/books/acquaintance/
Unit 4: Doing the right thing	27	family members/ teenager/parents/ tourists/grandmother/ waiter/ businessmen, eating/ guests/ customers, waiter/	Family/being teens/ family duties/ travel/ giving advice/job/ manners/ in restaurant/
Unit 5: On the move	10	Caricature of mother & sister/husband, wife/friend/travel agency owner/ travellers/	Getting the phone/ shopping/ acquaintance/holiday/ travel/
Unit 6: I just love it	10	Old man/ hosts/ Whites/ cook, astronaut, waiter/	Appearance/student visitor/behaviour/pizza/
Unit 7: The world of work	42	Thief, interviewer/interviewer, interviewee/ police officers/ Nobel Prize winner & giver/ car workers/hurricane hunters, trapeze artist, iron workers/ caricature of woman/mother & daughter/ granddaughter, grandfather/phone caller/	Job/job interview/ Nobel Prize/demonstration/dream jobs/watching the sun set/being careful/holiday/appointment/
Unit 8: Just imagine	26	Woman/immigrants/ friend/ Whites/ servant, driver/help providers/husband, wife/	Imagination/going to a sunny country/giving advice/winning the lottery/spending money/ charity/family problems/
Unit 9: Relationships	18	Husband, wife, marketing officer/ relationships expert / friends/ students/ father, daughter, wife/ Whites/ interviewees/	Buying a house/solving problems/ planning a holiday/looking for homework/family problems/ kinds of personalities/ family/
Unit 10: Obsession	8	drinking/father, son/artist/eccentric individual/ collectors/	Drinking ones beer/phone bills/lifelong passion/fake star/ collecting/
Unit 11: Tell me about it	14	Receptionist, tourist/ singer/ daughter & mother/ secretary/ lovers/ elderly woman/ Caricature of Uncle Sam/Whites/	Stranger in town/Madonna biography/having biscuit/ manager schedule/being in love/living longer than men/ knowing the world/trainers/
Unit 12: Life's great events	22	Husband, wife/husband, wife, child, police officer/husband, wife/Whites/singer/ passer-by/man/ granddaughter, grandmother /	Marriage/complaining/family problems/ strange birth/ singing/asking for direction/ asking for direction/ saying sorry/asking & offering help/

Total of Whites represented: 257

Appendix E: The number, the roles, and the topics related to Blacks

	Presence	Roles	Topics
Unit 1: it's a wonderful world	2	Internet fan/athlete/	Wonders of the world/Olympic games/
Unit 2: get happy	5	Child/passer-by/ basketball players/	Happiness/job/sport/
Unit 3: Telling tales	0	/	/
Unit 4: Doing the right thing	0	Teenager/	Teens/
Unit 5: On the move	0	/	/
Unit 6: I just love it	0	/	/
Unit 7: The world of work	3	boxers/secretary/	Boxing/appointment/
Unit 8: Just imagine	3	Flight attendant/poor child, food provider child/	Winning the lottery/charity/
Unit 9: Relationships	0	/	/
Unit 10: Obsession	0	/	/
Unit 11: Tell me about it	0	Young man/	Trainers/
Unit 12: Life's great events	0	/	/
Total of Blacks represented: 13

Appendix F: The number, the roles, and the topics related to the Asians

	Presence	Role	Topics
Unit 1: it's a wonderful world	2	Celebrity/internet fan/	Goodwill ambassador/ Wonders of the world/
Unit 2: get happy	0	/	/
Unit 3: Telling tales	0	/	/
Unit 4: Doing the right thing	2	businessmen	Manners/
Unit 5: On the move	1	Friend/	Arranging to meet/
Unit 6: I just love it	2	pictures of same student visitor/ brother/	Student visit/ correspondence/
Unit 7: The world of work	0	/	/
Unit 8: Just imagine	0	/	/
Unit 9: Relationships	2	smiling woman, serious man/	Kinds of personalities/
Unit 10: Obsession	0	/	/
Unit 11: Tell me about it	0	Secretary/	Job/
Unit 12: Life's great events	0	/	/
Total of Asians represented: 9

Appendix G: The numbers, the roles, and the topics related to diverse characters

	Presence	Roles	Topics
Unit 1: it's a wonderful world	1	Caricature of Scottish man wearing Scottish kilt/	Origin/
Unit 2: get happy	6	3 native Americans/3 Arabs/	Tale/talking while sitting on steps/
Unit 3: Telling tales	4	4 Muslim women	Manners/
Unit 4: Doing the right thing	0	/	/
Unit 5: On the move	0	/	/
Unit 6: I just love it	0	/	/
Unit 7: The world of work	0	/	/
Unit 8: Just imagine	7	3 Muslim workers, mention of disaster victims, AIDS victims, homeless people, incurable disease victims /	Charity/
Unit 9: Relationships	0	/	/
Unit 10: Obsession	0	/	/
Unit 11: Tell me about it	0	/	/
Unit 12: Life's great events	0	/	/
Total of diverse characters represented: 18

Appendix H: Controversial topics in the coursebook

Inappropriate items

Units

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Sex (overt mention)

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Narcotics

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Isms

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Pork

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Anarchy

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

AIDS

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

TC

A

A

A

A

Israel & six pointed stars

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Racism

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Genetic engineering

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Terrorism

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Politics

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

TC

A

A

A

Violence

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

TC

Alcohol

P

P

P

P

P

A

A

P

P

P

P

P

Out of marriage relationships (cohabitation, dating, boy/girlfriend)

P

P

P

A

A

P

A

A

P

A

P

A

Glorifying dangers in some countries

A

A

A

P

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Religion

A

A

A

A

P

A

A

A

A

A

P

A

Ideological icons

P

A

P

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

P

P

Revealing clothes

P

P

P

P

A

A

P

P

A

P

P

A

Divorce

A

A

P

A

A

A

A

A

P

P

A

A