What is in a textbook? Investigating the language and literacy learning principles of the ‘Gateway to English’ textbook series

This paper investigates three English textbooks for primary classes 4, 5 and 6 in Ghana from the ‘Gateway to English for Primary Schools’ series, and their complementary teachers’ guides, in order to determine the assumptions about teaching and learning which the books embody. The paper pays particular attention to the approach to language and literacy learning which underpins these materials. Littlejohn’s three-level framework was used to analyse the course materials. The first stage involved the description of the textbooks, the accompanying teachers’ guide and the English syllabus as well as the textbook selection and evaluation criteria, as spelt out in the ‘Textbook Development and Distribution for Basic Schools in Ghana Policy’. The second level involved the analysis of tasks and activities from a sociocritical perspective. The third stage draws on the analyses of the first and second stages to determine the language and literacy principles underpinning the textbooks and related materials. Findings indicate the Gateway to English for Primary Schools series endorses the ‘technical skills’ approach to language and literacy development. Implications of the findings for language and literacy development in multilingual Ghanaian classrooms and for textbooks and materials development in book famine communities such as Ghana are discussed.

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