Republic of the Philippines

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Pablo Borbon Main I, Batangas City, Philippines 4200
COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION
Tel. No. (043) 980-0385 local 1128
English for Specific Purposes

BOOK EVALUATION

Jhamil L. Amponin BSED-1201

Title:

English, American, & Philippine Literature and

Communication Arts

Author/s:

Josephina Payawal-Gabriel, Ph.D.

Publisher:

St. Bernadette Publishing House Corporation

1. Who are your learners? This textbook is in consonance with the

overall goal of the new curriculum. Meaning,
its target learners are Grade 9 students with
ages which ranges from 13-18 years of age.

2. What are the aims of your course? Basically, the aim of this course is to
develop communicative competence and
literary competence which is also associated
with the appreciation of literary art of both
Filipino and American writers. It also aims to
develop a functionally literate student who
can develop critical and logical thinking
skills.
3. What kind of language description
do you require?
4. What language points should be
covered?
5. What proportion of work in each
macro-skill is desired? Should there
be skills-integrated work?
6. What micro-skills do you need?
7. What text types should be included?
In his book, Transformational Generative
Grammar (TGG) is used since the course
deals with communicative competence which
is a set of rules used for formulating
grammatically correct sentences.
More so, functional grammar is also
required. Functional grammar, based on
systemic linguistics, emphasizes the way
spoken and written language operate in
different social situations.
The language points that should be
covered must be relevant to both grammatical
and literary topics. In grammatical, the
structure and proper use of wordings (e.g.
subject-verb agreement) must be present. In
literary, on the other hand, analyzation of
literary works such as short stories and
poetries in the form of written tasks must also
be present.
The distribution of work in each macro-
skill for both spoken and written must be 1:2,
which means written skills must be more
dominant than those of the spoken skills since
this course focuses more on reading and
writing.
 Integration of language and literature
The micro-skills needed are the learners’
: knowledge of grammar, social conventions
related to language use, coherence in talking
and writing, and the use of nonverbal clues.
This should include both factual and
literary text types. For literary text types, the
use of different approaches such as in the
form of short stories, poetry and narrative is
recommended for the enhancement of
learners’ flexibility in understanding different

8. What subject-matter is required?
What level of knowledge should be
assumed? What types of topics are
needed? What treatments should
the topics be given?
9. How should the content be
organized throughout the course?
10. How should the content be
organized within the course units?
11. How should the content be
sequenced throughout the course?
12. How should the content be
sequenced within a unit? Should
there be no obvious sequence?
forms of written works. For factual, the use of
informative texts and contexts must be
properly applied.
The subject matter required is Philippine
and American English and should be focused
on answering questions after reading literary
works with critical and intelligent thinking. In
relation to this, the use of correct grammar
must be applied in their construction of
sentences. As a result, vocabulary of learners
will be broadened. The level of knowledge
assumed must be in the level that secondary
school learners must have. The treatments that
the topics should be given are factual and
literary.
The main objective is to enhance the
basic skills of secondary school learners
according to understanding literary works
while enhancing their grammar and
vocabulary. The content must be organized
around language points.
The content of this book should be
organized according to the courses which
allow a clear focus on the reading and writing
skills. The topics must be able to allow a clear
focus on certain skill areas in critical thinking
and in-depth reading.
The content should be sequenced
throughout the course by other criteria such as
relevance of answers to the given literary
work and clear and proficient application of
the vocabulary and grammatical knowledge
they acquired through their sentence
constructions.
The content should be sequenced within
a unit from comprehension to production. The
learners will be given an example of literary

13. What theories of learning should the The theories of learning that the course must
course be based on?
14. What aspects of the learners’
attitudes to/ expectations about
learning English should the course
take into account?
15. What kind of exercises/tasks are
needed?
16. What teaching-learning techniques
are to be used?
work to be read. Afterwards, this would be
followed by activities in relevance with the
topic that would measure and test their
knowledge prior to what they have learned.
be based on are:
 According to schema theory, reading
comprehension is an interactive
process between the text and the
reader's prior background knowledge.
The students must be able to compare
and contrast their prior knowledge
from what they will still be learning.
 This must also be based on cognitive
reading theory wherein both language
comprehension and decoding are
necessary for reading comprehension
success.
Patience in reading and critical thinking
ability are some of the attitudes that a learner
of English is expected. This must also be
taken into account because most of the
students tend to easily get bored whenever
they see lengthy written works.
The course must impose reading and
writing practices that would improve the
students’ comprehension skills. The students
must be able to answer questions in a
substantial manner to test whether they have
or have not understood what they have
learned.
The course must focus more on a teacher-
centered approach. Meaning, he/ she is
required to explain and elaborate a literary
work based on a deep level of understanding.
He /she may use pair or group works in
giving activities so that students may share

17. What aids are available for use?
18. What guidance/support for teaching
the course will be needed?
19. How flexible do the materials need
to be?
20. What price range is necessary?
21. When and in what quantities should
the materials be available, etc?
their thoughts to their co-students and have an
interactive learning.
The most available aid for teaching
nowadays is the overhead projector. The
facilitator here may project the topics they are
to teach using the projector and also the
activities for better learning. They may also
use visual presentations such as videos and
images in relation to the topics presented.
The prior source of guidance and support
for teaching the course that may be needed is
by listing vocabulary and language-skills
points. The teacher may ask the students to
give their prior knowledge of the topic before
it has been introduced to hem. Later on, they
may be asked to compare and contrast their
answers given to what is really meant by the
topic.
The materials both used in teaching
and learning must first possess relevance to
the topics presented and given so that it will
be easier for the student to acquire the
knowledge imposed to them without
confusion. The materials is required to have
versatility that the students may not only use
them at school but also in other places.
The suggested price range is from Php 250-
450.00 only. The course must not only be
efficient and effective in the students’
learning processes, but also it must possess
cost-efficiency. Other students who are not
financially-fortunate may not be able to afford
the book because of its price.
The production of these materials must
meet the number of population of student
learners who takes up the course. If not, there
would be lack of materials for the student
learning.