Analysis of texts found here: http://www.slideshare.net/BMABHK/texts-to-be-analysed Dr Sy-ying Lee analysed these texts during a workshop in April 2013 as part of "Love to Learn": Co-organised by Bring Me A Book Hong Kong and the Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation, "Love to Learn" is a collaborative non-profit series of talks and workshops designed to promote children's critical, creative, and innovative thinking whilst minimising anxiety and stress related to academic performance. In the 2011 Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study (PIRLS), Hong Kong ranked LOWEST out of 45 regions in terms of motivation to read and family literacy. Only 12 percent of Hong Kong parents engaged in pre-school literacy activities with their children, versus the international average of 37 percent. Through Love To Learn, we hope to show parents and teachers how easy it can be to instil a real love of reading in their children, making teaching and learning more pleasurable and less stressful for everyone involved!

1. Why Should Youngsters Enjoy
Stories: A Corpus Investigation of
School Text and Teen Literature
Syying Lee, Ph.D
National Taiwan University
of Science and Technology

2. Part I:
Elementary School Text vs. Stories
In Wang and Lee (2007) study:
A. 65 storybooks were read to children who had zero or little
English background
B. Chapter books were introduced in the third year, Findings:
children
Progressed and participated in SSR in year four
Started reading authentic English books Marvin Redpost by Louis
Sachar
Became independent readers
C. What is it that contributed to this amazing outcome?

3. Rationale
Are textbooks proper teaching material since we
heavily rely on it in our teaching?
Do they supply quality and quantity input for
effective English learning?
Can textbooks help pupils read authentic texts
with the language and cultural input provided?
Can textbooks help pupils build the
communicative competence with the language and
cultural input provided?

4. Materials
Storybooks: 65 storybooks which were read
aloud to pupils in an EFL classroom for 4 years
(Wang & Lee, 2007).
Books were chosen based on the instructor’s
experience with young children in EFL classes.

5. Materials
Textbooks: 3 series textbooks, Joy, Hess, & Longman
(12 volumes for each) which are designed for the 6
year of English instruction and widely used in the
public elementary schools in Taipei
Textbook series were selected as a result of informal
surveys with several elementary schools and text
publishers.

6. Three Aspects of Comparisons
Vocabulary: quantity and quality
Total number of word tokens and content words, e.g. nouns,
adjectives, verbs
Grammar: sentence patterns
Wh-questions, interrogatives, declarative statements (DOE,
2006)
Cultural information: holidays, festivals, other
celebrations
Communication is never cultural-free (Cortazzi& Jin, 1999)

7. Table 2.
Numbers of Word Tokens, Headwords, and Word Families
Material
Total Words
(tokens)
Headwords
Possible word*
families
Storybooks 24,698 2,117 1,270
Hess 7,337 894 536
Joy 8,398 1,034 620
Longman 5,951 811 486

8. Table 3.
Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives Appeared in the Stories and
Textbooks
Materials Nouns Verbs
Adjec-
tives
Total Number of
Different
Content Words
Storybooks 1073 364 272 1709
Hess 502 128 70 700
Joy 579 145 76 800
Longman 441 102 71 614

9. Storybooks
Contain more patterns than the textbooks do and than those
required by the DOE requirement, for example, tag questions,
exclamations, sentences with a passive voice, and others.
Are written mostly in the past tense (Yang, Huang, & Lee, 2000),
different from the textbooks in which texts are mostly written in
present tense throughout the 12 volumes.

10. Finally the bell rang. Sure
enough, he was waiting for me
by the bus.
I was real scared. I tried to
walk by him, but he pushed me.
"Just leave me alone!" I said.
Can be used to express feelings or emotions

11. Textbooks: “can” is used to ask about one’s ability, e.g.
“Can Lily ride a bike? No, she can’t.”
Storybooks: a wide variety of linguistic features are used
to create more vivid images and expressions.
Rhetoric questions
Won’t Mom hove this, Dad?
Why, didn’t you know?
Surprise
Can you believe it?
Again?
Bigger than you?

12. How questions
In textbooks, “how” questions are limited to referring to
the degree of things (“How old are you?”) and situations
(“How are you?”)
In storybooks, in addition to these ordinary uses, “how”
questions are used to express meanings closer to our real
life, emotion, and feeling.

13. I asked my little sister if she got my invitation and
hid it somewhere.
She giggled and said, "Maybe you weren't invited."
I never thought of that.
How could that be?
I called my best friend to talk about something.
He said, "Boy, will we have fun at Billy Bear's
birthday party on Saturday! We are all going to Fun
City!"
Hens on strike!
Whoever heard of such a thing?
How can I run a farm with no milk
and no eggs!
Farmer Brown was furious.

14. Sample Exclamations
“What a wonderful surprise!” she says. ( Five Little
Monkeys Bake a Birthday Cake)
What a pig! (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs)
At first, he couldn't believe his ears. Cows that type?
Impossible! (Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type)
Awesome!
“Hooray!” (Just a Baseball Game)

15. Sample Passive Voice Sentences
NO passive voice sentences can be found in
textbooks.
She was nowhere to be found. (Piggybook)
No hiding place was missed. (Clifford’s
Happy Easter)
“Maybe you weren't invited.” (Just not
Invited)
When his work was done, he would sit by the
fire and wish he was big and hairy like his
brothers. (Prince Cinders)

16. Content on the Target Culture:
the culture of the target language
Content on the Source Culture:
the learners’ own culture
No chance to read stories about Chinese or any Asian cultures
in the four years of storytelling
Content on the International Culture
Others: Sample Content on Birthday
Celebration in Both Types of Material
Culture:
Holidays, Festival and Customs

17. Content on the Target Culture
Comparison of Texts on Christmas from the Textbook
Series and Storybooks
Comparison of Texts on Birthday Party from the
Textbook Series and Storybooks
Table_4.15_Texts_on_Christmas_from_the_Textbook_Seri
es_and_Storybooks.doc
Table_4.17_Presentations_of_Birthday_Celebration_form_
Both_materials.doc

18. Culture:
Holidays, Festivals, & Customs
Cortazzi & Jin (1999): Communication is never culture-free.
Kilickaya (2004): ELT material is supposed to carry the
responsibility to present cultural information.
Richards (1993): “I see textbooks as source books, rather
than course books. I see their role as facilitating teaching,
rather than restricting it.”

19. Part II: Junior High School Texts vs.
Teen Literature
Materials:
One set of textbooks (6 volumes) most widely used in junior
high school
28 chapter books popular for children in the US and can
possibly be read by a regular 6th grader in one year as
supplementary reading, or even a 4th grader (Wang & Lee,
2007)
8 books in Marvin Redpost
20 books in Magic Tree House
Instrument:
COCA (http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/): The Corpus of Contemporary
American English is the largest freely-available corpus of English
created by Mark Davies of Brigham Young University

20. Procedure
The 6 textbooks and the 28 storybooks were firstly scanned and
converted to a word file.
A computer program was designed to calculate the numbers of
word types (tokens), nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
COCA was then used to calculate the percentages of word
levels (e.g. 1-500, 500-3000, >3000, and academic word level
words) in every 1000 words.

21. Magic Tree House Series by Mary Pope
Osbrone

22. Magic Tree House Series by Mary Pope
Osbrone
Polar Bear Past Bedtime Ghost Town at Sundown

23. Marvin Redpost Series by Louis Sachar

24. Marvin Redpost Series by Louis Sachar
Super Fast, Out of Control

25. Textbook: reading
人民教育出版社 (2004, Oct.) .英語 六年級下冊 P.54

26. Textbook: dialogue
人民教育出版社 (2004, Oct.) .英語 六年級下冊 P.67 人民教育出版社 (2004, Oct.). 英語 六年級下冊 P.72

27. Total Word Tokens for Each Storybook and
Textbook
A Magical Crystal? 8098
Super Fast, Out of Control 7470
A Flying Birthday Cake? 7404
Alone in His Teacher’s House 6932
Ghost Town at Sundown 6421
Civil Wars on Sunday 6380
Is He a Girl? 6301
Earthquake in the Early Morning 6216
Vacation Under the Volcano 6091
Class President 6040
Viking Ships at Sunrise 5962
Midnight on the Moon 5918
Buffalo Before Breakfast 5852
Hour of the Olympics 5764
Polar Bears Past Bedtime 5692
Tigers at Twilight 5662
Twister on Tuesday 5620
Day of the Dragon King 5529
Night of the Ninjas 5481
Kidnapped at Birth? 5479
Pirates Past Noon 5375
Revolutionary War on Wednesday 5327
The Knight at Dawn 5290
Mummies in the Morning 5130
Sunset of the Sabertooth 4953
Junior High School Book 5 4835
Afternoon on the Amazon 4818
Dolphins at Daybreak 4814
Dinosaurs Before Dark 4783
Why Pick on Me? 4696
Junior High School Book 4 3997
Junior High School Book 2 3308
Junior High School Book 3 3268
Junior High School Book 6 3001
Junior High School Book 1 1681
52,418 Marvin Redpost Series
110,865 Magic Tree House Series
19,953 Junior High School Books

28. Total Word Tokens & Words with Different Parts of
Speech
Total number of
words
Words met per
semester
Noun Verb Adj. Adv.
Story-books 163,283 8,164 2079 1657 640 153
Textbooks 19,953 3,325 952 493 250 91

29. Percentages of Level Words (per 1000 words):
Textbooks
Books 1~500 501~3000 >3000 Academic
Junior High 1 68% 13.6% 18.3% 0.1%
Junior High 2 72.8% 13.6% 13.6% 0%
Junior High 3 69.2% 15.8% 14.6% 1%
Junior High 4 72.8% 13.5% 13.6% 0.8%
Junior High 5 73.7% 13.6% 12.3% 1.2%
Junior High 6 73.6% 15% 11.6% 2.2%
Average percentage 71.7% 14.18% 14% 0.88%

30. Percentages of Level Words (per 1000 words):
Magic Tree House Series
Books 1~500 501~3000 >3000 Academic
Dinosaurs Before Dark 67.5% 16.6% 17.3% 0%
The Knight at Dawn 68.3% 14.3% 17.4% 0%
Mummies in the Morning 67.9% 15.2% 17.1% 0%
Pirates Past Noon 63.9% 15.3% 18.9% 0%
Night of the Ninjas 67.8% 16.3% 15.9% 0%
Afternoon on the Amazon 67% 16.5% 16.4% 0%
Sunset of the Sabertooth 65.2% 16.6% 18.1% 0%
Ghost Town at Sundown 67.5% 14.2% 18.2% 0%
Hour of the Olympics 68.4% 15.2% 16.5% 2%
Buffalo Before Breakfast 66.1% 15.3% 18.5% 0%
Average percentages 66.9% 15.5% 17.43% 0.2%

31. Percentages of Level Words (per 1000 words):
Marvin Redpost Series
Books 1~500 501~3000 >3000 Academic
Kidnapped at Birth? 65.5% 12% 22.3% 0%
Why Pick on Me? 71.6% 11.3% 16.8% 0.5%
Is He a Girl? 71.9% 10% 17.2% 0%
Alone in His Teacher’s House 72.6% 11.6% 27.3% 0%
Class President 77.7% 22.6% 10.8% 0%
A Flying Birthday Cake? 71.9% 13.4% 14.7% 0%
Super Fast, Out of Control 73.5% 11% 15.4% 0%
A Magic Crystal? 73.2% 11% 15.8% 0%
Average percentages 72% 12.86% 18% 0.06%

32. Percentages of Level Words (per 1000 words):
Comparison of Three Materials
1-500 500-3000 >3000 Academic
Textbooks 71.7% 14.1% 14% 0.8%
Magic Tree House 66.9% 15.5% 17.4% 0.2%
Marvin Redpost 72% 12.9% 18% 0.06%

33. Findings and Interpretations
Storybooks that can be read for one year have a total number of
word tokens (types) 8 times the number of words in textbooks
used in three years, 163,000 vs. 20,000, with similar
percentages of level words in every 1000 words of text.
What does this mean?
Storybooks contain verbs over 4.5 times the number of verbs in
textbooks, e.g. 1,657 vs. 493, a sharp increase of verbs from
children storybooks, 364.
What does this mean?

34. Findings and Interpretations
In textbooks, the context that presents the new words is very
limited, making the learning more condensed and tiring. Most
words are learned through memorization for quizzes and exams.
Storybooks have a much richer context for new words to recycle
many more times in more detailed, interesting, and imagistic
descriptions, providing a built-in review for vocabulary
acquisition (Krashen, 2004; Trelease, 2006).
The much higher rate for verbs shows the importance of
describing motions, movements, and behaviors in detail in
stories, giving learners the models in narrating stories.

35. Excerpts from Magic Tree House Series
Afternoon on the Amazon (Nature)
The rain forest is in three layers. Thick treetops, often over 150
feet in the air, make up the top layer. This is called the forest
canopy. Below the canopy is the understory, then the forest floor.
The jaguar is the biggest predator in the western hemisphere. It has
gold fur and black spots.
Civil War on Sunday (History)
“All of us in this tent were once slaves,” the man said. “We ran
away from our owners in the South to fight to end slavery, to fight
for freedom for our people. I ran barefoot for over thirty miles to
tell the Union soldiers that the Confederates were going to attack.”

36. Excerpts from Magic Tree House Series
Buffalos Before Breakfast (Culture, nature, and history)
“The buffalo gives our people many gifts,” said the old woman.
“Food from his body. Tepees from his skin, tools from his
bones.”[…] “Cups from his horns” Grandmother went on. “Ropes
from his hair. Even winter sleds from his ribs.”
Midnight on the Moon (Science)
A person weighs less on the moon because of the moon’s low
gravity and lack of air. If you weigh 60 pounds on Earth, you
would only weigh 10 pounds on the moon.

37. Excerpts from Marvin Redpost Series
Why Pick on Me? (Emotions)
“You were snot?” asked Clarence. “He just said that he was snot.” …
“That’s not what I said,” said Marvin.
“That’s snot what I said,” said Clarence.
“Just go to the end of the line, Marvin,” said Travis.
Marvin didn’t move. Clarence grabbed the ball from him.
“Oh, gross!” he exclaimed. “His boogers are on the ball!” even Stuart
laughed.
“I’m not playing with this ball!” said Clarence. He threw it to Marvin.
Marvin held up the ball.
“Look, there’s nothing on it,” he said.
“Now they’re on his hands!” said Clarence.
Everyone backed away from Marvin.

38. Excerpts from Marvin Redpost Series
Alone in His Teacher’s House(Relationship, Forgiveness)
“I’m sorry,” said Mrs. North.
“You’re sorry?” said Marvin. His legs were shaking.
“It was unfair of me to ask you to take care of such an old—” she
stopped.
“I just didn’t want to put him in a kennel. You must have felt
awful!” the next thing Marvin knew, Mrs. North was hugging him.
“The plane was very late,” she said, still hugging him. “Otherwise
I would have called you last night. You probably thought I hated
you.”
“Maybe a little,” said Marvin.
“I’m so glad Waldo had someone like you.” Marvin noticed her
eyes were wet

39. Conclusion
In addition to providing a greater amount of vocabulary
exposures, storybooks provide a wider variety of sentence
structures or patterns closer to our everyday language used to
describe our feelings and emotions.
The cultural information embedded in the stories constitutes the
very fundamental base for building communicative competence
because “communication is rarely culture-free” (Cortazzi & Jin,
1999).

40. Conclusion
The most obvious limitation of textbooks: “a purely functional
approach to language and language use could not do justice to
the ‘whole complex business of communication’ “(Widdowson,
1978).
And, the CLT based on textbooks only help learners
accumulate performance units (e.g. asking and requesting for
info) without building any underlying competence required for
actual communication and further learning (Yang, Huang, &
Lee, 1999).

41. Conclusion
The comparison made in this report may not be fair. But, have
we been fair to our children when they deserve more quality
and quantity input?
The findings of this exploratory study, exploring into the
quantity and quality input provided in both types of materials,
suggest that teachers do not limit their teaching in the frame of
textbooks, which can be used for only one kind of purpose: to
teach the language required by school (Smith, 2003).