Observations on input quality and quantity in the analysed workbook sections

Above, the results of the qualitative analysis of the workbook sections are discussed from different perspectives in accordance with the goals of this study. However, one of the major goals of this study was to sum up what kinds of differences in input quality and quantity can be found between the analysed EFL textbook and workbook sections. For that reason, the implications the results suggest for input quality and quantity are summarised in the following.

As defined under 2.1 above, linguistic input is the second language data the learners are exposed to (e.g. Slabakova 2016: 20). Based on the results of this study, notable differences were found between the workbook sections in the number of exercises focusing on the present

progressive. Thus, All Stars 4 Activities and Go for it! 5 Workbook provide the largest amount of input on the English present progressive, and High five! 4 and 5 Activities provide clearly the smallest amount of input on the present progressive (see 5.1). At the same time, it must be observed that in Go for it! 4 and 5, Finnish is used in over half of the exercises themselves, and only English is used in the analysed exercises of All Stars 4 and High five! 4. Based on these two results, it can be concluded that the largest amount of English language input on the present progressive was found in All Stars 4 Activities. According to cognitive approaches to SLA (e.g. Hulstijn 2007: 783– 795; Mitchell et al. 2019: 129–133), input drives the acquisition of L2, and a central element in the input is frequency of the targeted feature. Similarly, Slabakova (2016: 101–103) contends that learners must encounter a particular grammatical construction often enough to learn it. Bearing this in mind, it seems that especially High five! 4 and 5 Activities would benefit from increasing the frequency of the present progressive in the provided input.

However, in view of the notions of van Lier (as referred to by Alanen 2000: 109) on the importance of the learners active role in processing the input as well as of the social aspect to achieve input intake, the number of exercises promoting interaction must also be observed. This is in tune also with the principles of the Interaction Hypothesis on the importance of interaction as a source of input (Mitchell et al. 2019: 58–59). According to the results of this study, the workbook in which communicative interaction is promoted the most in the analysed exercises was, again, All

Stars 4 Activities, although all examined workbook sections would benefit from a more abundant

use of efficiently interactive pair and group work exercises (see 6.1.3).

As for the different sources of input in these workbook sections, audio source was used most abundantly in the analysed exercises of All Stars 4 Activities, and even there in only 29 per cent of all examined exercises, followed by All Stars 5 with a proportion of 21 per cent. In contrast, the analysed exercises of Go for it! 4 and 5 relied heavily on written sources, and visual sources were used in half of the examined exercises of High five! 4 (Table 4). In view of the notions of

Hulstijn (2007: 783–795) on the importance of practicing all aspects of language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing, the provided input in the analysed exercises may not be ideally balanced.

One of the most important elements of high-quality input is that it is comprehensible (e.g. Krashen 2009: 57; Slabakova 2016: 6). As regards functional morphology, Slabakova (2016: 410– 411) notes how important it is that “the syntactic effects and the semantic import of the morphology are absolutely transparent and unambiguous” in the input. Considering the notions of VanPatten (2009: 39–43), Bardovi-Harling (2000 21–48), Hulstijn (2007: 790 and van Lier (2001: 262) on the importance of lexis, it seems that the use of lexical support in the form of adverbials of time, which would also have helped make the semantic import of the present progressive form transparent (cf. Slabakova 2016: 410–411), could have been much more abundant in the analysed workbooks. Particularly as adverbial specification of progressives with time adverbials is used relatively frequently in authentic speech samples in corpora of spoken British English (Römer 2005:75–79).

According to Krashen (1985:2), comprehension is aided by context and extra-linguistic information (e.g. pictures and objects). In this respect, differences were found between the

workbook sections under comparison, and visual support was most abundantly used in the analysed exercises in All Stars 4 Activity Book, in a way which would seem to help link the linguistic form with an extralinguistic situation (cf. Slabakova 2016: 6), and make the input comprehensible. In contrast, pictures of activity were used in the Go for it! books with base form verbs, which would seem to be confusing for the learners and not in line with the notions of Slabakova (2016: 410–411) and Carney and Levin (2002: 9) above.

As noted above (cf. 6.1.2), Römer (2005: 282–285) contends that both of the most frequent functions of the progressive: the continuous non-repeated and the continuous and repeated should be covered already at the beginners level to provide the learners with communicatively relevant input. In the workbooks analysed in this study, only the continuous non-repeated function of the present progressive was introduced, and thus, the recommendations of Römer (2005: 282–285) seem relevant also in this context.

In conclusion, the amount of English language input, i.e. the amount of repetition in the examined workbook sections was the largest in All Stars 4. In contrast, the amount of input was clearly the smallest in High five! 4 and 5, and it seems that these books would benefit from an increase in input on the present progressive. Similarly, all of the workbook sections would seem to benefit from a more abundant use of efficiently interactive pair and group work exercises, as well as from a more balanced choice of input sources. Furthermore, a richer use of lexical and visual

support in the examined workbook sections would help ensure that the provided input is comprehensible.