University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2019-01-25 The Changing EFL Teacher-Textbook Relationship in Ukraine, 1917 – 2010: A Non-Native English-Speaking Teacher’s Perspective. An Autoethnography Chebotaryov, Oleksandr Chebotaryov, O. (2019). The Changing EFL Teacher-Textbook Relationship in Ukraine, 1917 – 2010: A Non-Native English-Speaking Teacher’s Perspective. An Autoethnography (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/109860 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY The Changing EFL Teacher-Textbook Relationship in Ukraine, 1917 – 2010: A Non-Native English-Speaking Teacher’s Perspective An Autoethnography by Oleksandr Chebotaryov A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH CALGARY, ALBERTA JANUARY, 2019 © Oleksandr Chebotaryov 2019 Abstract The goal of this autoethnographic study is to understand the relationship between a non-native English-speaking teacher of English as a foreign language and their textbooks at different stages of their professional development, in different socio-cultural and political – Soviet and post- Soviet – contexts with the growing tendency of opposing or rejecting textbooks as educational tools. The study focuses on the gap in the literature, which lacks the account of textbooks in action. It is a first-person narrative of the use of English language textbooks, which is set in a school in Ukraine. The study also provides the retrospective on the development of local English textbooks published and used in the Soviet Union and later in independent Ukraine outlining differences and similarities between local and global trends in textbook use. ii Acknowledgements It is my pleasure to thank the people who helped make this thesis possible. First, I express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Veronica Bohac Clarke, who encouraged me to take the road to the academy and gave invaluable advice when I needed it. I would like to thank Dr. Rahat Zaidi, my supervisor, who would always challenge me to be self-reliant in the pursuit of my degree and to look ahead to future endeavors. My sincere utmost gratitude is due to Dr. Ian Winchester, my co-supervisor, whose humanistic approach, inspirational guidance and almost magical powers made me motivated, focused and organized. No words can express how grateful I am. I would like to thank my committee members Dr. Paul James Stortz and Dr. Catherine Chua for their critical insight and fruitful discussions. My thanks also go to my course instructors Dr. Hetty Roessingh, Dr. Yan Guo, Dr. Greg Lowan-Trudeau, Dr. Marlon Simmons, with special thanks to Dr. Sylvie Roy for giving me the sense of direction in research, and Dr. Mairi McDermott for introducing me to the realms of autoethnography. My deepest love and thoughts are with my family, my mother, my wife and children, my sister, and my extended family. You have always been with me during all these years, and I give you my love whether I am near or far. I would like to express my warmest gratitude to my colleagues, friends and students, both in Canada and Ukraine, who followed my academic endeavor and gave me support and encouragement. iii Dedication For those who write across the lines iv Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...iii Dedication ……………………………………………………………………………….iv Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………….….v List of Illustrations …………………………………………………………………..…vi Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...………1 Chapter 1 – Making a Proposal…………………………………………………………5 Chapter 2 – Books about Books: Literature Review………………………..………..22 Chapter 3 – In Search of Methodology………………………………………………..35 Chapter 4 – Mind If I Find?...........................................................................................55 Chapter 5 – Analyzing That……………………………..…………………………...177 References ………………………………………………………………………….…185 v List of Illustrations Figure 1. Restored pictures (Chebotaryov, 1995, p. 111) ……………..……………… 142 Figure 2. Manuscript pages (Krivchikova & Chebotaryov, 1995), author’s archive … 146 Figure 3. Manuscript pages (Krivchikova & Chebotaryov, 1995), author’s archive .... 148 Figure 4. Self-made prompts to scaffold students’ speaking…………………………. 169 vi 1 Introduction “Many leading scientists do not consider that science can give absolutely reliable knowledge”. (Longman Dictionary of contemporary English, 2009, p. 1559) One of the typical features of an educator’s work is the permanent feeling of dissatisfaction. That feeling can grow or fade, but it never goes away completely. The root of that dissatisfaction lies in the desire of a normal person to do things well, and if possible, better. As things do not always go well in the classroom due to various reasons, people in charge start looking for the guilty party. People in charge belong to different groups both in and out of education: general public, mostly represented by parents and mass media, educational authorities of all levels, educational publishers and their representatives, academia, instructors, teachers, and less often students. As it is extremely rare for the humans to find fault with themselves, they tend to find the roots of our problems in someone or something different from themselves. Sometimes it is reasonable, sometimes not, but as everyone of us has been involved in the educational process, many people think they have expertise in the matter. Although experts in education are many, the inner circle is made up of students and teachers. They interact much more often than any other participants of the big debate, and the classroom is the place where the main things in education happen. Apart from teachers and students – and the furniture – school classrooms also have books on shelves. Many of them are textbooks, the silent third element of the teaching and learning process (see Allwright, 1981; Maley, 2011), which in the recent years received more attention and criticism than in previous decades, the element which is often called the main reason for the dissatisfaction. If we look closer into the case of the textbook, or to be more precise the textbook of 2 English as a foreign language (EFL), we will find ourselves amidst such polarized statements, opinions and views, that at first it seems almost impossible to navigate through a whole stack of controversy surrounding the subject: “The assumption is that textbooks, sanitized as they are, are factual and thus noncontroversial” (Longman Dictionary, 2009, DVD-ROM, Examples from the corpus). “Coursebooks are commodities to be traded, but what they contain is the result of the interplay between, at times, contradictory commercial, pedagogic and ethical interests” (Gray, 2002, p. 157). “…textbooks are often identified as a major contributor to the general fund of ignorance” (Tyson & Woodward,1989, p. 14). “...it is far better to set out the positive advantages of using textbooks...” (O’Neill, 1982, p. 104). “...not too much can be expected from teaching materials” (Allwright, 1981, p.8). “Student teachers are taught that good teachers do not follow the textbook but devise their own curriculum and materials” (Hutchinson & Torres, 1994, p. 316). “Student teachers who experienced a teacher training program that devalued textbooks used textbooks in all of the subject areas during student teaching” (Zahorik, 1991, p. 185). “A textbook is the teacher’s tool. It is to the teacher what the spade is to the gardener, the chisel and saw and screwdriver to the woodworker, the typewriter to the typist” (West, 1960, p. 75). “...I have been waging war on materials-driven lessons” (Thornbury, 2000, p. 2). “If you’ve never used a coursebook, the chances are that you have never been a language teacher” (Freebairn, 2000, p. 3). “Textbooks are written and published under the direct supervision of the Ministry of 3 Education. Both teachers and students are obliged to rely on the textbooks for their teaching and learning” (Mustafa & Cullingford, 2008, p.87). “In both countries teachers used textbooks very frequently, in class and for their lesson preparation, and this set the tone for their teaching” (Pepin, Gueudet & Trouche, 2013, p. 696). “To combat this trend of over-reliance on the textbook, a strong case has been made for the promotion of teacher-generated materials…” (Rubdy, 2003, p. 39). “Textbooks define, codify and organize” (Christenbury & Kelly, 1994, p. 76). “I want coursebooks that are so engaging, inspiring, flexible and effective that I can just teach without much extra work” (Masuhara, 2011, p. 236). “Despite the impact of new technologies, textbooks will doubtless continue to play an important role in language teaching and provide a useful resource for both teachers and learners” (Richards, 2001, p. 6). So, what makes the EFL/ESL textbook – despite the growth of new technologies and despite profound criticism of being outdated, bland, artificial, dull, boring, unrealistic – strive