Specific Features of Three Newly Published English Textbooks for Elementary School in Japan – A Quantitative Study of the Textbooks

Abstract

As Japan starts English education at the primary level in 2020, the study looks at three sets of English textbooks for the primary level through quantitative analyses. The objective of the study is to find specific features of each textbooks through quantitative analyses, because quantitative studies are known to be useful objective information which qualitative studies often fail to miss. The vocabulary-size analysis shows the following. First, Crown Jr. textbooks have the largest vocabulary size, second, the Correspondence Analysis shows that Crown Jr. textbooks seem to contain some Jr. high school level grammar, and third, Grade 5 textbooks of Junior Sunshine and New Horizon Elementary focus on the alphabets, singing and chanting, and school life; that Grade 6 textbooks of New Horizon Elementary and Junior Sunshine have materials on international foods and culture, and that both grade 5 and 6 textbooks of Crown Jr. contain more third-person sentences. The study believes these findings would provide useful information for those who are engaged in primary and secondary English education in Japan.