Microsoft Word - BW Research 5.1.4.docx 32 THINKING SKILLS IN THE ENGLISH COURSE BOOK Beyond Words Vol. 5 No. 1. May 2017 Beyond Words Vol.5, No. 1, May 2017   Thinking Skills in the 12th Grade English Course book in Timor Leste Joaninho Xavier Hei hjoaninhoxavier@yahoo.com Universidade da Paz Timor Leste Abstract This study aims to analyze the English course book of (Manual do Aluno INGLÊS 12.o ano de escolaridade/Students’ English Manual for 12th Year Schooling) in Timor Leste. The activities in the reading and listening sections of the course book were performed to determine whether they emphasized on lower or higher levels of cognitive process. The study attempted to answer the following question: Do the cognitive levels of the activities that relate to the focus on reading and listening in the 12th grade English course book sufficiently represent all the six levels of the New Bloom Taxonomy of thinking skills? The objective of this analysis was to discover the reading and listening activities that can sufficiently promote the levels of cognitive process. The activities determined as the criteria for analysis were: Wh-questions, true/false question, yes/no question, multiple choice question, complete the sentence phrase, a chart, matching questions, statement question, and a key word request question. The activities of the questions were gathered, listed with the total numbers of 161 questions and analyzed according to the six levels of New Bloom’s Taxonomy. The results showed that 98 activities emphasized mostly on lower levels cognitive order while only 63 activities emphasized the higher levels of thinking skills. So, the course book mentioned above targeted as a resource for students to learn the language, not as a resource for students to develop thinking skills because it fails to equip learners with the activities requiring higher levels of thinking order. By implication, for the teacher/syllabus designer can be aware to modify their own learning material by integrating more higher-order questions to achieve higher levels of thinking skills. Keywords: Course book Activities Analysis, and New Bloom’s Taxonomy Introduction The essential materials for teaching and learning process that play a fundamental role are course books. Course books are considered essential for teaching and learning instructions especially for countries where English is used as a foreign language. There are many ELT course books that consider relevance with the settings but unfortunately some of them are not associated with the learners’ background, and expectation/needs (Davidson, 2005; Carol & Kupcyzk-Romanczus, 2007; MEYCS, 2007). An English course book that can assist the learners to be capable in communication should reflect on the syllabus objectives so as in the content of its activities which can equilibrate the learners thinking skills. Hence, to support the educational system, most of the developing countries all over the world including Timor Leste recognize the importance of using the course books as the instructional materials. Tomlinson, B. (1998) states that “a course book is a textbook that provides the basic materials for a course and it serves as the only book THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK 33   used by the learners during a course. It usually covers work on grammar vocabulary, pronunciation, functions and the four skills.” Hutchinson and Torres (1994: 327) describe a textbook as “an important means of satisfying the range of needs that emerge from the classroom and its wider context”. Timor Leste distinguishes the significance of English as the preferred language in international communication, and so as for the educational field, and assuming the working language status in the Timorese Constitution. Therefore, the first Constitutional Government of Timor Leste through its Ministry of Education has developed its first curriculum in 2004 after adapting some curriculum as well as coursebooks such as from Indonesia, Portugal, Brazil and Australia. Nevertheless, the first curriculum developed and course books adaptation were criticized by the stakeholders because they did not correspond with the learning environment. For that reason, some revisions were made by the fourth Constitutional Government of Timor Leste which then published the new curriculum in 2011 that is currently used in Timor Leste. Recognition the importance of English as the preferred language in international communication, science and higher education, even assuming the working language status in the Timorese constitution, justifies its inclusion as a compulsory subject in the curriculum of general secondary education for Timor-Leste. Used as a lingua franca in the region, the English language was established as an important element of the Timorese people’s multilingualism, promoting capacity building at the personal and social level, contributing to the socio-economic development of East Timor. Through the English discipline, level of continuation, English language learning is intended to contribute, in coordination with the other subjects in the curriculum, to the integral formation of the students and promote the development of linguistic- cultural skills of young Timorese. In this perspective, learning a foreign language, especially English, and plays a key role in expanding the horizons of young people’s communication, constitutes an essential element for the deepening of civic education, democratic and humanistic. (Ministerio da Educação de Timor Leste PlanoCurricular, 2011, 19). And in 2014 the 1st edition of the Students’ Manual for 12nd grade English course book for secondary school in Timor Leste was published based on the linguistic theories that a course book will reveal the levels of comprehension skills in oral and written expression, and knowledge of linguistic, culture, and explore the range of communication channels that can provide resources for the learners to use English as a tool of communication purposes and dialogue in everyday life. As a matter of fact, the content that is going to enhance students thinking skills is from the activities in the course book itself. Therefore, the researcher curiously would like to analyze this Students’ Manual for 12th grade English course book that reflects the syllabus objectives with the reading and listening activities which can promote students’ cognitive domain. This analysis will determine whether the 12th grade English course book only makes students memorize or actually encourages and enhances their ability to analyze, evaluate, and create. The significant findings of previous studies dealt with questions similar to those conducted by (Andre, T. 1979; Black R. 34 THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK   Thomas, 1980; and Hoeppel, 1980; Robertson, J. 1988; Ibtihal Assaly & Abdul Kareem Igbaria, 2014) and Bloom have proposed various taxonomies. These taxonomies clarify the levels of three educational objectives by which activities are categorized: cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Most of these studies used Bloom’s Original Taxonomy to analyze the textbook content of activities. There are merely few studies that used New Bloom’s Taxonomy such as (Amin, 2004; Mosallanejad, 2008; and Gordani 2008; and Gholamreza Zareian, & Mohammad Davoudi, 2015). Table 1. The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, Anderson et al. (2001) as below: Learning Objectives Definitions Create (level 6): Combining elements together to form a coherent or functional whole: We organize elements into a new pattern or structure. Evaluate (level 5): Making judgments based on criteria or standard. Analyze (level 4): Breaking down material into parts and determine how they relate. Apply (level 3): Knowing when to apply or use a procedure in a given situation, recognizing patterns to transfer to situations that are new. Understand (level 2): Constructing or interpret meaning from instructional message, including oral, written and graphic communication long term memory. Remember (level 1): Identifying or describe relevant knowledge from long-term memory. One of the crucial issues in the content of the course books is the questions containing activities. These questions are studied in this research in order to distinguish the activities in the course book which can reflect various thinking skills as stated in Bloom's Revised Taxonomy learning objectives. Because those questions from the course book have powerful influences towards students’ cognitive development. As Edward and Bowman (1996) stated, questions are vital components of the course books as they aim at creating an interest in the subject. Hence, this analysis will justify whether the course book places emphasis upon higher levels of thinking processes, such as, analyzing, evaluating, and creating or whether the activities merely encourage lower levels of understanding, understanding, and applying. The content of the 12th grade English course book should correspond with specification of learning objectives. As stated by Aviles (2000) that Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives is a tool that can be used in the wider context of education to help both new and experienced educators to think more precisely about what it means to teach and test for critical thinking. "Content analysis is a multipurpose research method developed specifically for investigating thinking levels from the THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK 45   reading and listening sections’ activities serves as basis for inference" (Holsti, 1969, p 2). It is a systematic, replicable technique for compressing extensive and large amounts of text into smaller, more manageable content categories based on explicit rules of coding. The resulting inferences can then be collaborated using other methods of data collection (Krippendorff, 1980). The analysis serves as a tool to determine whether the activities should be saved, changed, or modified. Some of the related literature has revealed that teachers tend to pay more heed on lower order cognitive skills. It means there is a lack of higher level learning objectives and concomitant lower-level cognitive activities in most course books (Houghton, 2004; cited in Forehand, 2005). As the studies conducted by Hoeppel (1980), analyzing the question in the reading skills, Amin (2004), examined the learning domains of General Persian textbook, exams, and college teachers’ views. Both analyses were using Bloom Taxonomy, the findings showed that those course books focused on lower levels of cognitive domain. (cited from www.ijern.com). The Purpose of the Study The aims of this study is to analyze the activities in reading and listening sections of the Students’ Manual for 12th grade English course book in order to identify whether the course book represents all the six levels of cognitive domain such as remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating in accordance with Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, Anderson et al. (2001). The analysis will focus on the activities consist of questions such as: A Wh-questions, True/false question, yes/no question, multiple choice question, complete the sentence phrase, a chart, matching questions, statement question, and a key word request question. Literature Review Huitt, W. (2011) explained that the beginning of 1948, a group of educators undertook the task of classifying education goals and objectives. The intent was to develop a classification system for three domains: the cognitive, the affective, and the psychomotor. Work on the cognitive domain was completed in the 1950s and is commonly referred to as Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain (Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956). Others have developed taxonomies for the affective and psychomotor domains. The major idea of the taxonomy is that what educators want students to know (encompassed in statements of educational objectives) can be arranged in a hierarchy from less to more complex. The levels are understood to be successive, so that one level must be mastered before the next level can be reached. The original levels by Bloom et al. (1956) were ordered as follows: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and evaluation. 44 THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK   Anderson, L. D. and Krathwohl, D. (Eds.) (2001). Revised Bloom's taxonomy to fit the more outcome-focused modern education objectives, including switching the names of the levels from nouns to active verbs, and reversing the order of the highest two levels (see Krathwohl, 2002 for an overview). The lowest-order level (Knowledge) became Remembering, in which the student is asked to recall or remember information. Comprehension, became Understanding, in which the student would explain or describe concepts. Application became Applying, or using the information in some new way, such as choosing, writing, or interpreting. Analysis was revised to become Analyzing, requiring the student to differentiate between different components or relationships, demonstrating the ability to compare and contrast. These four levels remain the same as Bloom et al.’s (1956) original hierarchy. In general, research over the last 40 years has confirmed these levels as a hierarchy (Anderson & Krathwohl). In addition to revising the taxonomy, Anderson and Krathwohl added a conceptualization of knowledge dimensions within which these processing levels are used (factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognition). The Role of Course books in English Language Teaching. A course book is always used as suitable teaching and learning instruction materials in ELT especially in the settings where English is used as a foreign language. “They are best seen as a resource in achieving aims and objectives that have already been set concerning learners’ needs”, (Cunningsworth, 1995). Course books are overriding principle for teaching and learning process. They have prime roles as the manual that provide clear instructions for teachers and students they design and organize to promote certain objectives for the learners within certain level of needs. Course book defined here as textbook refers to as a published book especially designed to help language learners to improve their linguistic and communicative abilities (Sheldon, 1987). And also textbooks are used as supporting teaching instruments (O’neil 1987, Ur 1996). Hutchinson, T. and Torres, E. (1994) argue that textbook have very important and a positive parts to play in teaching and learning English. Hutchinson and Torres describe course books (using the terms textbooks) as suitable teaching materials that provide lessons, instructions, and exercises/activities for the students in order to acquire knowledge. However, textbooks are sometimes purchased without careful analysis (Green 1926, Mukundan 2007). Frequently, a textbook selection is not based on its intrinsic pedagogical value, but of the perceived prestige of the authors and of the publisher (Green 1926, McGrath 2002), or skillful marketing by the publishers (McGrath 2002). Ibtihal Assaly, Abdul K. I. (2014) summarized Ibrahim (1998), an Iraqi researcher who analyzed questions in a 6th- grade history book according to the cognitive domain in Bloom’s taxonomy. His THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK 45   sample, which included 87 questions, revealed 72% knowledge questions, 25.4% comprehension questions, and only 2.2% evaluation questions, while no questions addressed the levels of synthesis or analysis. (p.28). On the other hand, Riazi and Mosalanejad (2010) carried out a content analysis of Iranian senior high school and pre-university English language textbooks to investigate the types of learning objectives represented in these textbooks using Bloom's New Taxonomy of learning objectives. The findings revealed that in all grades lower-order cognitive skills were more common than higher-order ones. In addition, the difference between the senior- high schools at the pre-university textbooks in terms of the levels of the Taxonomy was significant since the pre-university textbook used some degrees of high-order learning objectives. Furthermore, Zamani, G. & Rezvani, R. (2015) investigated three Iranian University English textbooks that attempt to evaluate higher order thinking skills pertaining to the specialized courses; that is, Methodology, Language testing, and Linguistics. The researchers based on Anderson and Krathwohl, (2001) New Bloom Taxonomy of the cognitive domain. The exercises and activities of the textbooks were codified and the frequencies and percentages of occurrence of different thinking processes were calculated. The most important finding emerging from this study is that in all the textbooks lower-order thinking skills were more frequently targeted and represented than higher-order ones. Ibtihal Assaly, Abdul K. I. (2014) conducted a Content Analysis of the Reading and Listening Activities in the EFL Textbook of Master Class in Israel, stated that the results show that the author of Master Class placed emphasis on the lower thinking processes of comprehension. This is acceptable since the activities relate to the two sections of Mastering Reading and Listening. These results do not contradict with the goals of the new curriculum that attempts to offer students opportunities to obtain and make use of information from a variety of sources and media. On the other hand, the author has increased the number of activities that deal with higher thinking processes. The activities that work on the three levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation constitute about one third of the total number of activities that appear in the sections of Mastering Reading and Listening in the six units. This implies that the author has also succeeded in adapting activities to the objectives of the new curriculum Gholamreza Zareian, & Mohammad Davoudi, (2015), investigating the types and levels of questions available in two ESP coursebooks, namely, English for the Students of Sciences and English for the Students of Engineering taught in Iranian universities based on Bloom’s New Taxonomy of learning objectives. The overall findings of this study was that the most prevalent learning objectives pursued in the above-mentioned course books in Iran were lower-order cognitive processes, that is, remembering, understanding and applying. In other words, the majority of the questions assessed the three lower level cognitive domains and only few questions were found to address higher cognitive processes among the six levels of Bloom’s New Taxonomy. Therefore, it can be concluded that, based on the results of this research, the main objectives of the two ESP course books were the development of lower-order cognitive skills. Hence, it is 44 THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK   suggested that in order to improve the content of the course books and make a balance between lower-order questions and higher-order ones, multilevel questions should be devised and incorporated at the end of each passage. Research Method This study aims at analyzing the cognitive levels of reading and listening activities containing questions in the 12th grade English course book in Timor Leste. The questions were: Wh-questions, true/false question, yes/no question, multiple choice question, complete the sentence phrase, a chart, matching questions, statement question, and a key word request question. The data for this study would be analyzed in accordance with the six levels of cognitive domain, Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy Anderson et al. (2001). The qualitative method was employed to help explain the how and why and a quantitative method were also employed merely to generate the frequencies and percentages with no depth information, using Holsti’s equation (Holsti, 1969). Procedure and Data Analysis The data for this study was collected in two stages. During the first stage, the researcher gathered the activities from the two sections, reading and listening from the 12th grade English course book. Then, he listed the questions from unit one till unit nine in a serial order into the four-column table. Then, in the second stage, the researcher classified all the numbers of instructions activities and labelled them into levels of cognitive domain and then calculated them using research tool of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. The numbers of activities from labelling the level of frequency appeared were then calculated in order to determine the level of percentages from the activities in each unit. In order to analyze the collected data, as the first step, all the comprehension questions from the reading and listening sections in the 12th grade English course 44 THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK   book was classified, analyzed, and codified by two raters according to the six levels of New Bloom’s Taxonomy 2001 in order to examine to which levels of thinking skills were represented. The coding classified the first three as the lower levels of thinking skills (1) remembering, (2) understanding, (3) applying, and the other three (4) analyzing, (5) evaluating, and (6) creating categorized as the higher levels of thinking skills. Each coding category consists of action verbs for each level as well as key words that represent thinking skills. Afterwards, the frequency and percentage of the thinking levels on the basis of cognitive domain in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy were calculated. In order to foster the intra-rater reliability, a random sample of 54 questions out of 161 were selected. The consistency ratio was 96.29% that was found to be reliable, established using the Holsti’s equation (Holsti, 1969). Findings and Discussion The research tool of New Bloom’s Taxonomy was used to aid the researcher to answer this research question: Do the cognitive levels of the activities that relate to the focus on reading and listening questions in the 12th grade English coursebook represent all the six levels of the New Bloom Taxonomy of thinking skills? Findings In this section, the researcher presents the findings which were analyzed from the reading and listening activities of 161 questions that represent the six levels of cognitive domain in accordance with New Bloom’s Taxonomy as follows: Table 2. Level of Activities Frequencies and Percentages of the questions in the Six Levels of Cognitive domain in the BRT, Focusing on the Reading and Listening Sections in each of the nine units of the 12th Grade English Course book as following: The finding indicates that the numbers of questions which were dealing with the 44 THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK   lower levels at remembering is ranging with the frequencies from 3 – 11 and the percentages ranging from 20% - 45%. The activities of cognitive level of understanding comes up with the frequencies are at 1 -7 and percentages ranging at 6.25% - 43.75%. The cognitive level of applying is the other lower level of cognitive domain with the frequencies are ranging at 1 -5 and the percentages from 4.16% - 31.25%. Activities that deal with the higher levels of thinking processes are (analyzing, evaluating and creating). The activities that deal with cognitive process of analyzing with the frequencies at 0 – 6 and the percentages are ranging at 0% - 33.33%. One unit does not have any activities in this level. The questions that deal with evaluating got the percentages of 0% - 20% and its frequencies ranging at 0 – 3. One unit does not have activities in this level as well. The level of creating comes up with the frequencies ranging at 1-4 and the percentages ranging at 6.25% - 23.52%. The activities between the two levels- lower and higher levels of thinking order which got the highest percentages is the lower level of understanding of cognitive domain that got the highest of all the six levels of thinking skills in the activities of the reading and listening section from the nine units with the percentages ranging at 20%-45.83%. Then, the activities that deal with higher levels of thinking skills that got the highest percentages is the cognitive level of analyzing with the percentages at 0% - 33.33 Table 2 shows the frequencies and percentages of all nine units with the level of the cognitive domain based on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. It shows the frequencies from the lowest till the highest which are 15 – 47. And the percentages ranging from the lowest as well as the highest which are 9.31% - 29.19%. The level of Understanding repeatedly appeared in every units mostly with the frequency ranging at 47 and its percentages ranging at 29.19%. This is consistent with the findings of the previous studies Ibtihal Assaly, Abdul Kareem Igbaria, (2014) that Understanding is supplied mostly in several units in order to check the learners’ comprehension about the lesson. The activities of cognitive level of Remembering is the second most frequently appeared among all the nine units after Understanding with the frequencies at 31 and its percentages ranging at 19.25%. The following activities are of the higher level of thinking skills. This study finds that the higher level of thinking process analyzing, evaluating and creating appeared to be the least distributed in this course book. As a result, the three higher thinking skills are the lowest. As a matter of fact, there were merely 63 activities that put emphasis on the higher levels of thinking process. THINKING SKILLS IN THE ENGLISH COURSE BOOK 41 Beyond Words Vol. 5 No. 1. May 2017 Beyond Words Vol.5, No. 1, May 2017 Figure 3. The Frequencies and Percentages of the questions. Figure 3 shows the summary of the percentages of the two distinguished levels of lower and higher level of cognitive domain within the six levels of New Bloom’s Taxonomy across the activities of the nine units of reading and listening sections. Generally, it indicates that the highest percentages of both lower and higher levels is the level of Understanding with the frequencies of 47 and its percentages ranging at 29.19%. The activities in this level of cognition are dominated by Understanding because it supplies comprehension questions for learners to adapt, and survive before facing the more challenging questions. Remembering gets the second highest percentage of 19.25% and its frequencies ranging at 31. And analyzing is one of the higher thinking order that occupied the third place which is the percentages ranging at 18.63% and the frequencies are at 18.63. The activities of applying is in the fourth place with the frequencies of 20 and its percentages at 12.42%. Discussion As it was displayed in the findings in table 1, the lower level of thinking skills of understanding was repeatedly appeared in all the nine units of the 12th grade English course book among the other cognitive levels of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy with the percentages of 29.19%. In addition, the lower level of Remembering occupied the second highest place among the other cognitive levels with the percentages ranging at 19.25%. However, the cognitive level of Applying got the fourth place with the percentages was ranging at 12.42%. The activities of higher order thinking skills of analyzing, evaluating, and creating were less represented in all the units. However, an interesting result of this finding is that one of the higher thinking skills of the cognitive level of analyzing got the third place of the highest of all the other three cognitive levels with the percentages at 18.63%. The other two higher cognitive level of the thinking skills were the lowest with the percentages ranging at 11.18% for creating and evaluating was the lowest of all with the percentages ranging at 9.31%. As a matter of fact, as can be seen in the indication displayed in Chart 1, the lower order thinking skills are dominant in this course book. This findings are consistent with the previous findings of Riazi and Mosalanejad, (2010) who carried Remembering Understanding Applying  Analyzing  Evaluating  Creating  Frequencies  31 47 20 30 15 18 Percentages  19.25 29.19 12.42 18.63 9.31 11.18 31 47 20 30 15 1819.25 29.19 12.42 18.63 9.31 11.18 Level of Thinking Skills  Frequencies  Percentages  44 THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK   out a content analysis of Iranian senior high school and pre-university English textbooks. The findings revealed that in all grades lower-order cognitive skills were more common than higher-order ones and Gerannaz Zamani & Reza Rezvani (2015) investigated three Iranian University English textbooks based on New Bloom’s Taxonomy. The most important finding emerging that in all the textbooks lower- order thinking skills were more frequently targeted and represented than higher-order ones. Moreover, Gordani (2008) found that lower levels of cognitive skills were more dominant in guidance school English course book. The findings indicated that overall of this study which was based on the activities from the reading and listening sections presented all six levels of cognitive domain. However, the lower order thinking skills were more represented than higher order ones. So, the course book mentioned above targeted as a resource for students to learn the language, not as a resource for students to develop thinking skills because it fails to equip learners with the activities requiring higher levels of thinking order. By implication, for the teachers (syllabus designers) can be aware to modify their own learning material by substituting the weaknesses in the sections of this course book through integrating more higher-order questions in such a way to achieve higher levels of thinking skills. Conclusions and Recommendations Conclusion The results of this study show that the authors of this 12th grade English course book emphasize on the lower level of cognitive process which is understanding. So, this course book targeted as a resource for students to learn the language not as a resource for students to develop thinking skills because it fails to equip sufficient activities requiring higher levels of thinking order. This finding is consistent with the previous findings of Ibtihal Assaly, Abdul K. I., (2014) who conducted a Content Analysis of the Reading and Listening Activities in the EFL Textbook of Master Class in Israel. The findings also support the specific English program goals which are the competence of using English language activities such as understanding and interpretation in listening/reading with the variety of sources to sharpen their knowledge. Learners are taught to understand and interpret with critical and reflective way, information conveyed by different media, and produce diversified texts in English as stated in the curriculum objectives. This 12th grade English course book that was prepared by the Timor Leste’s Government and its counterparts for the 12 graders of secondary school contains a wealth of beneficial activities in the nine units of reading and listening sections. The authors have solved the puzzle by providing the activities for both levels, lower and higher order thinking skills, not only to grasp the meanings but also to strive beyond the knowledge. To conclude, this 12th grade English course book is appropriate for the learners to compete in the examination and matriculation in the higher education. Special credit should be given to the authors Gillian Moreira, Paula Fonseca, Susana Pinto, and Tim Oswald who provide this outstanding English Course book. Recommendations As this study is limited to only two sections of reading and listening activities of the 12th 44 THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK   grade English course book based on the thinking skills, the following recommendations are given. The questions of reading and listening sections investigated in this study should be given more attention on both levels-lower order and higher order thinking skills. This research finds that the learning objectives of cognitive levels of lower order thinking were represented in these two sections. However, the higher order of thinking skills is not emphasized in the reading and listening activities. By implication, the writers should pay more attention to emphasize the cognitive levels of higher thinking skills. Then, for the teachers (syllabus designers) can be aware to modify their own learning material by integrating more higher-order questions in order to achieve higher levels of thinking skills. The last, the future researcher is recommended to investigate the following part: 1. External and internal (cover of the book, introduction, and the language components and the skills) of this course book. 2. The remaining sections of the course book, the 12th grade English course book 3. The teacher’s guide and the workbook.   © Joaninho Xavier Hei Joaninho Xavier Hei is an English Lecturer in International Relations Department of Universidade da Paz, Timor Leste. He was born in Manuimpena, on May 2nd, 1980. He graduated from Santo Antonio High School in 2001, and in 2012, He graduated from Universidade da Paz with Bachelor of Arts in Social Science. He then continued his study in Widya Mandala Catholic University, Surabaya, Indonesia with a Master Degree in Teaching English as Foreign Language. References Amin, A. (2004). Learning objectives in university Persian and English general language course in terms of Bloom's taxonomy. (Unpublished master's thesis), Shiraz. Anderson, L. D. (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. U.S.: Addison WesleyLongman, Inc. Andre, T. (1979). Does answering higher- level questions while reading facilitate productive learning? . Review of Educational Research, 49, 280-318. http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/00346543049 002280. Aviles, C. B. (2002). Teaching and testing for critical thinking with Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Retrieved from spring 2012: http://eric.ed.gov. Black, R. T. (1980). An analysis of levels of thinking in Nigerian science teachers examinations. . Journal of research in science teaching, 17(4), 301-306. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tea.36601704 06. Bloom, B. E. ( 1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green. Bloom, B. E. ((1956). ). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green. Bull, S. G. (1973). The role of questions in maintaining attention to textual 44 THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK   material. . Review of Educational Research,, 43, 83-88. Caroll, G. &.-R. (2007). Millenium Development Goals and Timor Leste. In M. Clarke & S. Feeny (Eds.), Education for the End of Poverty. London: Nova Science Publishers. Cunningsworth, A. (1995). Choosing your coursebook. Oxford: Heinemann Publisher Ltd, 2. Davidson, T. (2005). Background strategy paper for EFA mission, 6-11 June 2005. Dili Democratic Republic of Timor- Leste. E., H. T. (1994). The Textbook as agent of change. ELT Journal, 84 (4), 315-28. Edward, S. &. (1996). Promoting student learning through questioning: A Study of classroom questions. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 7(2), , 3-24. Forehand, M. (2005, 12 13). Bloom's Taxonomy: Original and Revised in M. Orey (Ed). Retrieved from Emerging Perspective on Learning, Teaching and Technology. Retrieved in 2014: htp://www.Coe.Uga. Edu/epitt (bloom.htp Freebairn, A. &. (1995). Blue Print One. (Longman). In A. Cunningsworth, Choosing Your Coursebook (p. 116). Between Towns Road, Oxford OX4 3PP,UK: Macmillan. Freebairn, A. a. (1995). Blue Print One. (Longman). In A. Cunningsworth, Choosing Your Coursebook (p. 116). Oxford OX4 3PP,UK: Macmillan. Garton-Sprenger, J. &. (1991). Flying Colours. (Heinemann). Gholamreza Zareian, a. M. (2015). An Evaluation of Questions in Two ESP Coursebooks Based on Bloom’s New. International Journal of Education and Research Vol. 3 No. 8 August 2015. (www.ijern.com). Gordani, Y. (2008). content analysis of guidance school English textbooks with regard to Bloom's levels of learning. (Unpublished master’s thesis), Shiraz University, Iran. Green, A. (1926). 'The Measurement of Modern Language Books'. . The Modern Journal, 10 (5), 259-269. Heyward, M. (. (2005). Lafaek as a tool to support education improvements in East Timor. Dili: World Bank. Hoeppel, F. C. (1980). A taxonomical analysis of questions found in reading skills development books used in Maryland community college developmental/ remedial reading programs. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation).The American university. Holsti, O. R. (1969). Content analysis for the social sciences and humanities. USA: Addison Wesley Publishing Company., p.2. Houghton, R. (2004). Communities Resolving Our Problems (C.R.O.P.): the basic idea: Bloom's Taxonomy - Overview. Retrieved from Available online spring 2012: at:http://www.ceap.wcu.edu/Houghton/ Learner/think/bloomsTaxon Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta,. GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved [date], from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics /cognition/bloom.html. Hutchinson, T. a. (1994). The textbook as agent of change. . ELT Journal, 48 (4), 315-328. Ibrahim, F. A.-L. (1998). Curricula foundations, organizations, and Evaluation. Cairo: Egypt Library. Ibtihal Assaly, A. K. (2014). A Content Analysis of the Reading and Listening Activities in the EFL Textbook of Master Class. Education Journal. Vol. 3, No. 2,, 24-38. Kippendorff. (1980). Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Leste, M. d. (2011). PlanuCurricular. Dili: Ministry of Education of Timr Leste. Leste, M. d. (2011). ProgramaInglês. Dili: Ministerio da Educdação de Timor Leste. THINKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH COURSE BOOK 45   MEYCS. (2004). Primary Curriculum Implementation Plan: Timor Leste 2004-2009. Dili: Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport. Mosallanejad, N. (2008). Evaluation of high school English textbooks on the basis of Bloom's taxonomy. Unpublished master’s thesis, Shiraz University, Iran. Munby, J. (1978). Communicative Syllabus Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Northern Illinois University, Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center. (n.d.). Retrieved from facdev@niu.edu,: www.niu.edu/facdev, 815.753.0595 Nunan, D. (1988). Syllabus design. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 159. Nurisma, R. (2010). An Analysis of Reading Questions in English e-book entitled “Developing English Competencies for Grade XI”. The Learning University. University Negeri Malang. O'Neill, R. (1982). Why Use Textbooks. ELT Journal. JTLS3361348432200.pdf, (36) 2, 104-111. Quinn, M. (2006). Glimpses into East Timorese upper primary classrooms: changing policy, changing practices. Unpublished A paper presented at XXX Conference, Armidale. University of Melbourne. Quinn, M. (2008). Choosing languages for teaching in primary school classrooms. In J. Earnest, M. Beck & L. Connell (Eds.), Education and Health Rebuilding in Post-Conflict Transitional Society:. Case Studies from Timor-Leste. Perth: Curtin University Press. Razmjoo, S. A. (2012). On the Representation of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy in Interchange Course books. . The Journal of Teaching Language Skills 4(1). Riazi, M. a. (2010). Curricula foundations, organizations, and Evaluation of Learning Objectives in Iranian High- School and Pre-University English Textbooks Using Bloom’s Taxonomy. Volume 13, , 4. Richards, J. H. (2005). Interchange. . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roberson, J. (1988). A study of teachers’ questions and student response interaction about reading content in seventh-grade social studies classes. USA. Sheldon, L. (1987). ELT Textbook and materials: Problems in Evaluation and Development. . Oxford: Modern English Publications. Swan, M. &. (1990). The New Cambridge English Course . (CPU). Tomlinson, B. (1998). Comments on Part C. In Tomlinson, B. (ed) (1998) Materials Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ur, P. (1996). A course in language teaching – practice and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weir, C. a. (1994). Evaluation in ELT. Oxford: Blackwell. Wilkins, D. A. (1981, 1 2). Notional syllabuses revisited. Applied Linguistics. Retrieved from Zamani, G. a. (2015). ‘HOTS’ in Iran's Official Textbooks: Implications for Material Design and Student Learning. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research. Vol.2, Issue 5, 2015, pp. 138-151. Retrieved from www.researchgate.net/profile/Geranna z_Zamani.