NorthStar: Listening and Speaking Level 5 (3rd Edition) Sherry Preiss Pearson Education 2009, 290, pp. $ 36.

75 ISBN-10: 013233674X | ISBN-13: 978-0132336741

Textbook Review Anci Cao

Introduction

The textbook under review, NorthStar: Listening and Speaking Level 5 (3rd Edition), is a part of five level textbook series for English language learners who are young adults. Each of the five levels has two integrated skills textbooksone for listening and speaking, and the other one for reading and writing. The target users are students with advanced proficiency level. This textbook is intended to motivate the students to succeed in their academic as well as personal language goals. This textbook is based on current research in language acquisition and on the experiences of teachers and curriculum designers. The primary approach adopted in this book is a communicative approach, advocating a focus on critical thinking skills, sociocultural awareness, and interactive competence. The approach is guided by five critical principles claimed by the author (Preiss, 2009, p.v): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The more profoundly students are stimulated intellectually and emotionally, the more language they will use and retain. Students can learn both the form and content of the language. Successful students are active learners. Students need feedback. The quality of relationship in the language classroom is important because students are asked to express themselves on issues and ideas.

Overall, NorthStar: Listening and Speaking Level 5 (3rd Edition) is an excellent listening and speaking textbook for the students of advanced level. Though having some shortcomings, such as lacking sufficient fluency building activities, careful design of meaning-focused output activities, and sufficient language forms recycle, it can be easily adapted and supplemented by additional materials and the teachers. I would highly recommend this book. In what follows, I will provide detailed description, analysis and evaluation of the book.

Factual Description
Overall Layout This textbook is comprised of ten units, which are thematically based on high-interest and controversial topics, such as Internet and other Addictions, Workspace Privacy and so forth. Within each unit, it addresses six different substrands with specific goals written on the scope and sequence page. The six substrands include critical thinking, listening, speaking, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Moreover, each unit is divided into three sections with some standardized components: Focus on the Topic, Focus on Listening, and Focus on Speaking.

Physical Features Regarding the physical features of the textbook, it is colorful, visually appealing and well organized; it uses graphs, images and text to enhance understanding. Along with the 290page student book itself with grammar book references, extended research topics, exercise answer keys, and audio scripts attached in the back, there is an online workbook MyNorthStarLab, which provides personalized instruction and practice in all four skills. Besides, the NorthStar DVD has engaging and authentic video clips that correspond to the themes in the textbook. Moreover, there is a teachers manual not only providing step-by-step teaching suggestions in terms of time guidelines, expansion activities and instructions for using MyNorthStarLab, but also containing unit-by-unit achievement tests, answer keys to both the student book and tests, and a unit-by-unit vocabulary list.

General Analysis and Evaluation

Major Strands Selection and Sequencing A textbook with carefully-selected topics and well-sequenced units can be used as a strong pedagogical device that can positively affect the real class efficiency. As is mentioned above, the units in this textbook are thematically developed based on engaging and updated topics; they are closely related to students personal life that provides many opportunities to meaningfully apply the language in the real world. The themes also build on cross-curricular and cultural topics. It aims to raise students sociocultural awareness, where requires higher cognitive and language skills that are challenging but essential for advanced learners. The principle of the sequencing from unit to unit is mostly based on the level of difficulty. For instance, in terms of the speaking skill, the former unit only stresses on expressing and soliciting opinions or role-playing a scripted conversation. While in the latter units, it focuses on more complicated and difficult tasks, such as debate, creating public service announcements and role-playing a semi-scripted conversation. Materials In this textbook, all the reading and listening materials are selected from authentic materials, such as radio reports, interviews, lectures, newspaper, and websites; the selected content closely relates to the students. Thus, the authenticity and relevance of the materials engages students, links them to language use outside of the classroom, and encourages personal expression and critical thinking. In addition, the register of selected materials tends to be relatively formal, which reaches the goal of building academic skills. Moreover, students are exposed to a variety of types of input, such as listening audios, reading texts, cartoons, graphs, charts etc.. The presence of different types of input corresponds to the purpose of the activities. For instance, when it is intended to illustrate some metalinguistic comment and particular language rules, the students will be exposed to the charts that enable the students more clearly understand the presentation.

Task Design As is known to all, the language learning happens through interaction. The traditional teacher-dominated instruction is not suitable for this principle anymore. Therefore, there is increasing number of teachers in current ESL classroom adopting task-based instructions. This textbook is task-based, which focuses on using language to get something done (Graves, 2000). The effective design of the tasks really plays an important role in the real language classroom. Variety The number and variety of activities is more than adequate in this textbook. There are numerous activities triggering different modes of cognitive operation, from simpler repetition and memorization, to problem-solving, information synthesizing, and decisionmaking. They are done through individual, group and whole classroom activities, which also bring about interactional variety. Additionally, there are both student-initiated and teacher initiated activities. The student-initiated activities are dominated in this book where the teacher serves a role as a facilitator to inspire the language learning. Moreover, there are plenty of meaning-focused and language-focused activities. The balance of it tends to lean a bit to the meaning-focused activities, while the language-focused activities are more dominated in the sections of linguistic items and metalinguistic comments. Sequencing Within each unit, it is usually sequenced from developing receptive skills to productive skills. The activities within each section are basically sequenced from controlled to openended question activities, from single skill initiated to multiple skills integrated activities, and from universal activities to personalized activities. Major Weaknesses In spite of all the striking merits found in the textbook, there are still some potential drawbacks might bring about some problems and lower the effects of the textbook. However, I think all the following problems can be solved by careful adaptation and supplementation. Fluency-building Activity Having the fact that this is a listening and speaking textbook, fluency development definitely should be one of the essential skills that needs to be taken into consideration, especially for advanced learners. Unfortunately, looking through the whole book, though having plentiful meaning-focused output activities such as group discussion, debate, and role-play, there is no sufficient evidence to support fluency building activities, such as speed reading, 4/3/2 repeat retelling, ten-minute listening to easy stories. Meaning-focused Input Activity Some of the meaning-focused output activities are lack of careful design. Some labeled pairs activities in the text do not require learners to exchange information, and would probably not stimulate interaction. The more active learners would possibly dominate the discussion, where the shyer ones lose the chance to produce the language.

Metalinguistic Comments and Linguistic Items The recycle of the vocabulary appears problematic in this textbook. It is claimed that the vocabulary section is served as the purpose of reviewing the vocabulary from the listening materials and practicing the use of it. However, it does not provide enough chances to repeat and recycle the vocabulary. Additionally, the presentation of the grammar is not clear enough. Most of the grammar section only provides a concise presentation of the form of the target grammatical structure, but without a clear explanation of the meaning and function.

Representative Unit Evaluation

In order to further illustrate my evaluation of the textbook, I selected unit 5, Feng Shui: Ancient Wisdom Travels West, to closely examine on. It is from the middle of the textbook, of which students have been already familiar with the organization and types of activities. The goals of each skill targeted in the unit have been specified on the scope and sequence page. More detailed descriptions can be found in Appendix 2. The unit, on the theme of cross-cultural insights, begins with an intriguing cartoon on Feng Shui. Students are required to predict and share the information on the topic by working on a checklist and several discussion questions. Then students are exposed to an authentic reading passage. They will work with their partners and write the number of the boldfaced word next to the correct definition, which provides students with tools for understanding the first listening material. The next section, Focus on Listening, learners will listen to two authentic interviews. For the first listening selection, students are asked to listen for main ideas, details, make inferences by providing short answers for each question. After that, students will express their own opinions with their partners on the topic of the listening material. For the second listening selection, students fill in the missing information on a bagua chart based on what they have heard from the listening. Next, learners are asked to choose and draw the spaces, which are familiar to both themselves and their partners. Then they will make changes on it with the information organized and synthesized from both interviews. The last section is Focus on Speaking. Students will first review the unit vocabulary by word forms changing, fill-in-blank in an imaginary interview, and answering personal preference questions to partners by using target vocabulary. Next, students will work on grammar, pronunciation and functional language through a variety of tasks, such as rule presentations, fill-in-blank exercises, and several speaking activities. Finally, learners are required to present arguments based on an authentic news article. As all units do, learners practice taught vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and functional language through collaborative group works. As it is obvious to see, this unit is developed on a cross-cultural topic, Feng Shui, which is engaging and can also enhance students sociocultural awareness. The inputs are authentic, varied, relevant to the students, and academic-based, which is not only meaningful to the students, but also better serves the goal to develop academic skills.

Additionally, the tasks designed in the unit are varied; they have different focuses (meaning and language), cognitive operations, and they triggers to different types of interactions. The sequencing of the activities is also very effective, which is from controlled, simpler, and more universal questions to open-ended, complicated and personalized questions. One of the most striking points is that although the topic sounds a bit unfamiliar to the students, the activities provided are very authentic and transferable to the real life. For instance, asking students to incorporate what they learned from listening to redesign the spaces, which are familiar to them, such as their schools, some specific stores, and so forth. However, there are still several weak aspects that might need additional adaptation and supplementation. First of all, there is no fluency-building activity, which is essential for listening and speaking. Even though there are numerous meaning-focused output activities that inspire the meaningful productions, the fluency-building activity should not be replaced and plays an important role in language learning. In addition, there is lack of careful design for the meaning-focused activities, some of which do not require information exchange and would not probably stimulate interaction. At last, the recycle of the vocabulary is not sufficient. Though having the fact that there are a number of activities to practice them, only about half of which have been recycled in the unit. Nevertheless, I believe with careful adaptation and supplementation by the teachers, this textbook can be more effectively used.

Conclusion
All in all, I believe it to be a very successful listening and speaking textbook for young adult learners of advanced level. It is easy to use, attractive, and well-structured. It adopts engaging and authentic materials and provides a wealth and variety of exercises, activities and tasks. I would have no reservations recommending this book.

Works Cited Graves, Kathleen (2000) Designing Language Courses, Heinie, Cengage Learning Littlejohn, A. (1998). The analysis of language teaching materials: Inside the Trojan horse. In B. Tomlinson (ed.) Materials Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP, p. 190-216. Nation, P. (2007). The Four Strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1(1), 213. doi:10.2167/illt039.0 Nunan, D. (1989). Chapter 3 in his Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Preiss, Sherry (2009) NorthStart 5: Listening and Speaking, Pearson Education Sheldon, L. (1988). Evaluating ELT textbooks and materials. ELT Journal 42 (4): 237-246. Tucker, C. A. (1975). Evaluating beginning textbooks. English Teaching Forum 13 Special Issue, 355-361.

Appendix 1 Textbook Review Checklist FACTUAL DETAILS Title__ NorthStart 5: Listening and Speaking (3rd Edition) Author ___Sherry Presiss __ Publisher_______Pearson Education______________ Price___$36.75______ ISBN-10: 013233674X ISBN-13: 978-0132336741 No. of pages__290____ Components: SB / TM / WB / Tests / CDs / Video / Online Program Target skills_________Listening and Speaking_________________________________________ Level ___________________ Advanced_________________________________ Target Learners ___________________ Young Adult____________________________ ASSESSMENT (* Poor **Fair ***Good ****Excellent) PHYSICAL DESIGN AND OEVERALL LAYOUT Is it well-organized, with standardized components? Is it easy to use? Is it attractive for students? Are the graphs, charts used to enhance understanding? Does it have supplemental components? (audio scripts, research topics, grammar book references, answer keys?) CONTENT SELECTION AND SEQUENCING Are the topics engaging and up to date? Are the content based on sociocultural themes? Is it well-sequenced by unit to unit? MATERIALS Are the materials authentic? Are the materials varied? Are the materials relevant to the students? Are the materials appropriate to the students? TASK DESIGN Are the tasks adequate? Are the tasks varied? Are the tasks related and transferrable to the real world? Are the tasks focusing on language, meaning and fluency building? Are the tasks interactive? Are the types of tasks balanced? Are the tasks well-sequenced? **** **** **** **** *** *** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** *** *** *** *** ****

Are there plenty of supplementary materials? Are the tasks easy to adapted and supplemented? LANGUAGE SUPPORT Does it provide enough opportunities to practice vocabulary and grammar? Are the vocabulary items sufficiently recycled? Are the grammar presentations clear enough? Adapted from Tucker, C. A. (1975) & Sheldon, L. (1988)

** *** **** ** **