Modal Auxiliary Verbs in Prescribed Malaysian English Textbooks

Abstract

The use of corpus-based findings in order to inform L2 teaching materials have been emphasized by many researchers owing to the fact that the studies of authentic texts have revealed some inconsistencies between the use of grammatical structures in corpora, and those found in language textbooks that are based purely on hunch. Therefore, by comparing a textbook corpus with the British National Corpus, this study attempts to shed light on the extent in which modal auxiliary verbs presented in the Malaysian prescribed textbooks are identical with those used by native speakers. The findings showed that there are discrepancies between English language textbooks and real language use. Findings from this study contribute to the improvement of pedagogical practices in the teaching of the modal system and provide a sense of familiarity with textbooks' content thus assisting educators in identifying the particular strengths and weaknesses in textbooks already in use.

Have the Modal Verb Phrase Structures Been Well Presented in Malaysian English Language Textbooks?

“…It was decided not to do a query for the other structures because according to Kennedy (2002, p. 89) these structures are "extremely rare". Another reason that we decided to eliminate these three structures from our list is that Mukundan and Khojasteh (2011) found that there is not even a single instance of these structures in their corpus-based analysis on Form 1, 2 and 3 Malaysian English language textbooks.…”

“…To date, many studies questioned the authenticity of the language, grammar, pragmatics and vocabulary and phraseology presented in various national and international textbooks, and strongly noted that if learners were presented with appropriate grammatical structures in line with real language use, they would have encountered fewer difficulties handling relevant structures in communicative situations (Biber, Conrad, Reppen, Byrd and Helt, 2002;Gilmore, 2004;Meunier and Gouverneur, 2009;Romer, 2005Romer, , 2004aRomer, , 2004bNordberg, 2010, Mukundan andKhojasteh, 2011;Vellenga, 2004). Comparing the authenticity, grammar and vocabulary in textbooks and reference corpora such as Longman Spoken and Written English (LSWE) Corpus and British National Corpus (BNC), these studies indeed demonstrate that by ignoring frequent features of the language spoken or written by real language users, many textbooks implicitly portray these linguistic features as monolithic phenomena, which behave in the same way regardless of different contexts and situations of use.…”

Non-empirically Based Teaching Materials Can be Positively Misleading: A Case of Modal Auxiliary Verbs in Malaysian English Language Textbooks

“…Following similar approach as Romer's (2004a) in the comparative study of textbooks and BNC, Mukundan and Khojasteh (2011) reported that for certain modal auxiliaries, there was a mismatch between modal frequency order in lower secondary Malaysian English textbooks (Form 1-3) and the BNC. They also revealed that there were great differences in the relative frequency of verb phrase structures in which modals could occur.…”

“…In this regard Malaysian ESL textbooks were not exceptions. The prescribed Malaysian English language textbooks used in schools are reportedly prepared through a process of material development that involves intuition and assumption (Mukundan, 2004;Mukundan & Roslim, 2009;Mukundan & Khojasteh, 2011). If such is the case, present-day textbooks might lack a broad empirical foundation which leads us to the first reason for carrying out such a study; because non-empirically based teaching materials can be positively misleading.…”

“…for neglecting important information on the use of grammatical structures as well as lexical items in real language use and provided ample information about the mismatch and lack of fit between language used in the textbook and real language in use (Biber & Reppen, 2002;Carter & McCarthy, 1995;Frazier, 2003;Gilmore, 2004;Glisan & Drescher, 1993;Harwood, 2005;Holmes, 1988;Hyland, 1994;O'Connor Di Vito, 1991;Lawson, 2001;O'Keeffe, McCerthy & Carter, 2007;Mukundan & Roslim, 2009;Mukundan & Khojasteh, 2011;Romer, 2004a;Romer, 2004b). Surprisingly, all of these studies indeed demonstrate that although frequency information exhibit in computer databases has improved a lot, syllabus designers still tend to operate by hunch and neglect important and frequent features of the language spoken or written by real language users (Thornbury, 2004).…”