Research techniques and instruments used during the recollection of the information

out the proportion of the activities intended for increasing IC in all four of the coursebooks' units. I adopt the qualitative method afterwards to determine which dimensions of the IC each activity contains.

39 3.3.2 Sample

In the master's thesis I am going to analyse the coursebooks Way Up Intermediate (Collie 2010) and New Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars 2009) used in the first year of teaching EFL in Slovenian secondary schools as well as Diverso 1 (Encina et al. 2015) and Gente Hoy 1 (Martín Peris and Sans Baulenas 2013), used in the first year of teaching SFL in Slovenian secondary schools. Way Up Intermediate and Diverso 1 are both of recent production, while New Headway Intermediate and Gente Hoy 1 already have a long and well-established tradition in producing FL teaching materials, resulting in several subsequent editions.

The selection criterion I followed (beside the ones mentioned in the introductory chapter) was a correspondence between: the number of English and Spanish coursebooks (each of the two categories is represented by two coursebooks), the course year in which the manuals are used by students (the first), the types of secondary school that the textbooks are intended for (general secondary school) and the periods of its use in Slovenian schools (the time that coincides with the process of the creation of the present thesis).

The English Coursebook Way Up (Collie 2010) appears on the list of the coursebooks that the Slovene students can use during the first two years of their instruction at a general secondary school, as well as at a vocational secondary school. The main reason behind this choice is that I am already familiar with the textbook’s structure and content and I am quite enthusiastic about the large portion of pages that each unit dedicates to culture. I believe it promises quite a lot in terms of the development of IC. While analysing one of the units for the purposes of a course at the faculty, I discovered that students are provided with the chance to develop critical thinking and practice reading, speaking and writing while they are actually being challenged to ponder more deeply about their own behaviour towards and acceptance of different values. An added benefit of the coursebook that also lead me into thinking this is a unique textbook that would be highly interesting to examine is that Joanne Collie wrote it in collaboration with the Slovene teachers of English and; thus, the manual goes in line with the requirements of the Slovene syllabus.

Oxford University Press’ New Headway Intermediate (Soars and Soars 2009) was my next logical choice as its popularity with Slovene EFL teachers is almost unrivalled. The coursebook is aimed at Slovene students of English attending the first and second year of general secondary school as well as at those attending the third and fourth year of a vocational

40 secondary school. Its description on the blurb prides itself on being “the world’s most trusted English course” and claims that it perfectly understands and caters for all teacher and learner needs. I personally cannot confirm its promising and pretentious portrayal, as I only came across it a couple of times during giving individual courses of English, but I am intrigued to find out whether its spotless reputation is justified from the point of view of developing IC.

The Spanish counterpart of my choice is Diverso 1 (Encina et al. 2015), a publication by the Spanish publishing house SGEL. The textbook is in Slovenia used in the first two years of students' instruction at a general secondary school, as well as at a vocational secondary school. Once again, the culprit of my resolution to opt for this textbook is another course at the faculty, during which I designed a review of Diverso 1. I concluded the review with the deduction that the manual complies with the modern teaching trends of SFL teaching, which can also be inferred from its recent date of publication in 2016, and that, indeed, all of its units promote critical reflexion about the meaning of interculturality and, consequently, about the respect and solidarity (to name but a few values) towards diversity in the context of teaching and learning.

The other Spanish textbook I collected data from is the most used Spanish coursebook in the first, second or third year of general secondary school or vocational secondary school in Slovenia. Gente Hoy 1 (Martín Peris and Sans Baulenas 2013), produced by Difusion, is a revised and actualized version of its antecedent Gente, a pioneer course in the task-based approach. This new edition promises a substantial pedagogical renovation, as a result of taking into consideration a group of qualified teachers who are its users in various countries and contexts.

3.3.3 The description of the research

The analysis of the four mentioned coursebooks is based on a checklist that is basically equivalent to the list of the descriptors of resources that appear in the FREPA (Candelier et al.

2012: 24-37, 38-49, 50-59). The list is structured around three collections of resources, concerning knowledge, skills and attitudes and is organised at two levels, with the first one being arranged according to predicates (for example, knows that, knows how, knows examples) and the second one according to objects (language as a semiological system, language and society, verbal and non-verbal communication) or vice versa, in the case of the knowledge list (ibid. 2012: 63). The number of the descriptors and their organisation is specific

41 to each of the three lists of resources, which will be dealt with separately in the following paragraphs.

The list pertaining to the resource of knowledge is composed of two parts: the first group includes the descriptors related to language and communication and the second one is linked to culture. The authors' intention behind this decision was not to claim that language and culture are not intertwined. The real reason was “to make it easier to delimit the key concepts and make them more explicit” (ibid.: 62) and to facilitate the analysis and assessment of what is done in education. Unlike the lists of attitudes and skills, the first level of the knowledge list is organised around objects rather than predicates to ensure a variety of descriptors and to avoid “an artificial separation” of similar predicated (knows that, knows how, is familiar with examples) (ibid.: 63). Concerning cross-classification¹⁴, there are two categorisation systems.

The first axis is a categorisation concerning the level of linguistic analysis and cultural analysis.

The second ordering principle are “transversal” or relevant features, which can be used in all levels of analysis that are a result of the previously mentioned axis (ibid.: 64).

The type of knowledge mentioned in this first resource list is “explicit metalinguistic knowledge” (ibid.: 64), which is either declarative (relates to facts, data, phenomena) or procedural (relates to language, languages, communication) and is the result of observation, analysis and language learning or taking action in communicative situations (ibid.). The section on culture is, in relation to cross-classification, also discussed on two axes. The first one pertains to “culture as a system (models) of learnt and shared practices, typical of a particular community, which allow us to predict and interpret aspects of the behaviours of people from that community” and the second one to “culture as a combination of mental attitudes (ways of thinking, of feeling, etc.), of representations, which are acceptable in a community, i.e. not strictly individual” (ibid.: 66).

The set of the descriptors that pertain to the domain of attitudes is on the first level organised according to the predicates, which are then, further on, divided into subcategories of objects (ibid.: 69). The predicates refer to “ways of being” of subjects (ibid.) and are grouped according to those that are “directed towards the world (from oneself towards the world: for example, receptiveness to diversity)” or those that are “self-directed (from oneself towards oneself via

14 The term “cross classification” denotes various axes of classification not just those that divide descriptors into predicates or objects (Candelier et al. 2012: 61).

42 the world: confidence, feelings of identity etc.)” (ibid.: 70). Altogether there are 6 sections of predicates, among which each one includes a specific number of different sub-predicates. The first domain of predicates is composed of “attitudes to linguistic and cultural diversity” and the sub-predicates progress on an axis from less involved to more involved (ibid.: 71).

“Attention”, thus, “describes a sort of zero level of commitment towards diversity” […]

(Candelier et al. 2010: 83), “sensitivity to the existence of other languages […]” is, as well, a quite neutral attitude, but it already announces a more “affective approach” (Candelier et al.

2012: 71). “Curiosity about or interest in foreign languages or cultures […]” means a greater focus laid on language, culture and the person, but still does not denote an openness—“there can be ‘unhealthy curiosity’” (ibid.). Then we, finally, come to a “positive acceptance of linguistic or cultural diversity of others […]”, “openness to the diversity of the world's languages, people and cultures […]” and “respect or regard for ‘foreign’ or ‘different languages’ or cultures […]” (ibid.). The second domain of predicates comprises “attitudes which express readiness, desire, a will to act with regard to linguistic and cultural diversity”

and the sub-predicates progress on an axis from less committed to more committed or from

“psychological readiness” to “motivation with regard to linguistic or cultural diversity”

(Candelier et al. 2010: 84). The third section consists of sub-predicates which express a “way of being” in relation to language and to cultures and show progress on an axis from questioning to decentring (Candelier et al. 2012: 72). The first predicate describes »critical questioning attitude «, the second one the »will to construct “informed” knowledge or representations«, the third “the disposition or the will to suspend one’s judgment […]” and the last one a type of readiness “to start[…] a process of linguistic or cultural decentring or relativizing” (ibid.). The following predicate section focuses on attitudes that denote psycho-sociological processes “in a context of linguistic and cultural plurality” and progresses on an axis from “the will or disposition to adapt” to a “feeling of familiarity”, with its middle phase

“having self-confidence” (ibid.: 72). The last but one predicate category dedicates its attention to an “individual's relationship to language or culture” and the goal of “assuming one's own (linguistic or cultural) identity” (ibid.). The last group of predicates does not embrace attitudes towards diversity as is the case in the previous sections, but rather those that concern the ability to learn (ibid.: 73). It entails “sensitivity to experience”, “motivation to learn languages […]” and “attitudes aiming to construct pertinent and informed representations for learning”

43 (ibid.). All of the six predicates are also arranged according to two different “types of objects to which they can be particularly applied”: concrete or abstract (ibid.).

The same way the attitudes list is organised around the categories of predicates, the skills list is, as well, divided into predicate sections, which describe the type of skills that are referred to (can observe, can identify, can compare, can reproduce, to provide but a few examples), and the sub-categories of objects to which a skill can be applied (for example systems of writing, misunderstandings, unfamiliar features of language) (ibid.: 74). The order of the categories is not coincidental, as the top of the list is dominated by those related to metalinguistic observation and reflection and the bottom—apart from the descriptor »ability to learn«, whose objects refer to the learning domain—by categories connected to communication in action (ibid.: 77). Considering the second ordering principle, the categories progress from simple (metalinguistic) to complex (communication) (ibid.). If we comment on the arrangement of the objects, the sequence of those is also premeditated and follows the logic of grouping together either the general descriptors, or the descriptors dealing with language, another group are the descriptors taking into account culture, then there are less complex objects, followed by the more complex objects and the list concludes with two sections on language—what is signified, preceded by the category of the signifier (ibid.: 78).

At this point I would like to add that, given the large amount of the descriptors, consisting of categories of predicates and sub-categories of objects, my initial plan was to base our analysis on the main predicate sections. What I wanted to achieve with this selective choice was to carry out a holistic analysis without losing ourselves in the labyrinth of the predicate sub-sections. However, I had to change my strategy and include also the sub-categories of predicates, as I discovered that the meaning of the linguistic and cultural aspects used in the phrasing of predicate categories is in various cases ambiguous and could allow different and even contrasting interpretations depending on the reader, which is why the credibility of the analysis could be put in danger¹⁵. Beacco (2013: 6) even goes as far to say that the “verbal descriptors of [competences in general]” always prove to be ambiguous, despite the fact they

15 The authors of ROPP (Candelier et al. 2017) admit that the framework has been altered multiple times due to the readers' feedback to the authors exposing the problem of readability. Despite the appeals for

simplification, the creators of the FREPA believe it is not possible to provide a simplified version of the descriptors (Candelier et al. 2017:24). Given the large number of descriptors, the readers tend to perceive them as redundant and even unattainable (Beacco 2013: 6).

44 might appear precise. The second argument behind the limitation strategy is that I decided to test our hypothesis related to the level of depth of the resource attitudes by counting the number of the attitudes’ general predicate sections in each activity and by calculating the number of the attitudes’ “less committed” or “more committed” sub-descriptors. The object of the analysis in this study will, thus, be a collection of the representative units of all four coursebooks, that is, the instructions, the texts, and the visual and audio materials that make up the activities.

3.3.4 The description of the instruments used

The results appear in a table composed of four sections. The first department denotes the number of the page on which we can find an activity together with the number of an analysed activity taken from the chosen manual and the following three correspond to the categories of knowledge, skills and attitudes respectively.

3.4 Discussion of the results and interpretation

The hypotheses that are derived from the above research questions suppose that:

H1: The Spanish and the English coursebooks that are used in the first year of teaching these two languages in Slovene secondary schools contain intercultural contents, as IC is one of the written aims in Slovene EFL and SFL curriculum for secondary school.

Coursebook Knowledge descriptors

Skills descriptors Attitudes descriptors

TOTAL

Way Up Intermediate

364 (43%) 251 (29%) 241 (28%) 856

New Headway Intermediate

346 (39%) 273 (31%) 269 (30%) 888

Diverso 1 682 (48%) 337 (24%) 388 (28%) 1407

Gente Hoy 1 209 (41%) 142 (28%) 154 (31%) 505

Table 1 Representation of IC Elements in Terms of Three Resources of IC

As a means of examining the first hypothesis regarding the presence of IC in EFL and SFL coursebooks, all the tasks were analysed in terms of the three resources of IC: knowledge, skills and attitudes. The results presented in Table 1 have shown that in all activities of the four coursebooks a number of descriptors of all three resources of IC can be found. This signals that all the tasks contain all three features of interculturality and that, consequently, all four coursebooks contain intercultural contents. Consequently, we can confirm our hypothesis regarding the presence of IC. Provided that there are no other similar studies to this one, we, sadly, cannot compare our results with those acquired by other authors. What we can infer

45 from our findings is that they attest to a practical realization of the theoretic guidelines found in the Slovenian EFL and SFL curriculum for secondary schools that recommend intercultural communication as the ultimate aim of FL teaching and learning and can, as well, be interpreted as an alignment of the Slovenian intercultural strategy with the ultimate aim of the FREPA project (2012)—to promote pluralistic approaches in FL teaching and learning, among which we can count the intercultural approach. As coursebooks display a central teaching resource that has the power to exert influence on the manner in which a learner perceives the target culture (Sándorova 2016: 178-179), it is crucial that FL manuals contain IC contents. It is hoped that this attention given to the IC in the FL coursebooks will instil intercultural awareness in the learners and teach them how to conduct a respectful intercultural dialogue.

H2: The Spanish and the English coursebooks that are used in the first year of teaching these two languages in Slovene secondary schools do not balance the ratio of the three resources of IC—that is to say, knowledge, skills and attitudes.

With a view to discuss the second hypothesis about the balancing of the three resources of interculturality, all of the intercultural elements presented in each coursebook were analysed in terms of the three resources of IC: knowledge, skills and attitudes. By the same token, we focused on counting only the general descriptors, for example, K 1 Knows some of the principles of how languages work, while disregarding the subdescriptors, for instance K 1.1 Knows that language is/ languages are composed of signs which form a (semiological) system.

In the process of carrying out the quantitative analysis, we rounded fractional numbers to whole numbers, for example, a resource element percentage of 33,65 was written as 34%, while 43, 21 was written as 43%. The frequencies of the descriptors that belong to various resources found in each of the four coursebooks are displayed in Table 1.

As demonstrated in Table 1, all four coursebooks involve descriptors for knowledge, skills and attitudes. The frequency of the descriptors of resources found in Way Up Intermediate shows that the coursebook incorporates 364 descriptors (43%) for knowledge, 251 (29%) for skills and 241 (28%) for attitudes. Contents pertaining to knowledge strongly outnumber both skills and attitudes. The second most represented category are skills, while the frequency of the attitudes is the smallest, although they are only a percentage behind the skills. The coursebook, therefore, does not present a well-balanced ratio between knowledge, skills and attitudes, as the tide is in favour of knowledge.

46 The frequencies presented in the table above indicate a similar portrayal of IC resources for New Headway Intermediate, as the number of the descriptors associated with knowledge exceeds the skills and attitudes sections. A counting of IC resources shows a distinctive imbalance between the three types of resources. While the knowledge descriptors are represented 346 times (39%), skills and attitudes fall behind with 273 (31%) and 269 (30%) descriptors respectively. Once again, the frequency of the descriptors for skills does not differ markedly form the attitudes descriptors (there is only a one percentage variance).

The findings related to the content of Diverso 1 slightly differ from the results for Way Up Intermediate and New Headway Intermediate. While knowledge descriptors still appear with most frequency of 682 (48%) in the coursebook’s contents, the occurrence of attitudes is by 4% higher (388 descriptors for the total number) than the skills descriptors, which are represented 337 times (24%). However, the contents do show an asymmetry in knowledge descriptors from attitudes and skills and the frequency is, once again the highest for knowledge.

Knowledge descriptors also prevail in Gente Hoy 1, with 209 (41%) descriptors, and, similarly to its Spanish counterpart, knowledge is followed by attitudes with a frequency of 154 occurrences (31%), while the least represented category are skills with 142 (28%) frequency.

The results, again, point to a wide disparity between knowledge, on the one hand, and skills together with attitudes, on the other.

The overall coursebook material analysis indicates that the descriptors for knowledge completely dominate all four coursebooks. However, the occurrence of skills in EFL coursebooks is larger than those for attitudes, while the situation is vice versa in SFL coursebooks, where attitudes are more frequent than skills. The differences between the occurrence of skills and attitudes are in all four coursebooks, nevertheless, quite small.

The overall coursebook material analysis indicates that the descriptors for knowledge completely dominate all four coursebooks. However, the occurrence of skills in EFL coursebooks is larger than those for attitudes, while the situation is vice versa in SFL coursebooks, where attitudes are more frequent than skills. The differences between the occurrence of skills and attitudes are in all four coursebooks, nevertheless, quite small.