Evaluating White Space of a Malaysian Secondary ELT Textbook

Abstract

Students are believed to learn at optimum level with materials with a lot of white space since the existence of vast number of words and limited amount of white space, especially in textbooks may contribute to the increase in anxiety among learners (Tomlinson, 1998). This study evaluates the amount of white space in terms of pixels in the Malaysian KBSM Form 2 English textbook using MATLAB 7.5. The findings reveal the inadequacy of white space in terms of pixels in our local textbooks. Not many pages have the percentage of white space exceeding 90 percent which is believed to be the ideal on a page. Hence, this method of evaluation can aid textbooks writers or evaluators to create textbooks that are less threatening so that learning a language with textbooks might just be productive to both learners and educators.

An analysis of lexicon in Omani English language teaching: challenges from teaching and learning perspectives

“…Textbooks ought to be provided with more graphical presentation so that the pages look less threatening in terms of "white space". According to material development principles, the right amount of "white space" on a page is essential to facilitate better learning (Ng, 2011;Tomlinson, 1998). For the purpose of this study, the density ratio is assumed to provide the right amount of "white space".…”