An Analysis of English Textbooks Used in Lower Secondary Schools in Cambodia

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze English textbooks for lower secondary schools in Cambodia. The research sample was English for Cambodia Textbook Grade 9. Content Analysis was used to find out the features which were grammar structures, vocabularies, discourse types, socio-cultural aspects, and communicative functions. The finding revealed that tense was the most frequently grammar structure found (55.02%), followed by modal auxiliary verbs (17.1%). Noun wasthe highest frequent part of speech used in textbooks (54.16%), followed by verb, adjective, and adverb (28.33%, 15.27%, 2.22% respectively). For discourse types, dialogues and passages were the most used (45.24%), followed by letters (7.14%) and postcards (2.38%). For Socio-cultural aspects, social aspect wasthe most frequent text found (90.33%), followed by cultural aspects (9.67%) and most of the socio-cultural aspects involve Cambodian customs and traditions. The most frequent type of communicative function was requesting (18%) followed by greeting (16%), questioning (16%), and suggesting (4%). Three activity types were used in the textbook. The most frequent one was meaningful activity (41.92%) followed by mechanical activity (40.55%), and communicative activity (17.53%). The media attached to textbook composed of pictures (77.61%), and audio recordings (22.39%).