New Perspective in PROSPECT: An Assessment of Strengths and Weaknesses of Iranian Second Year Junior High School English Textbooks
الموضوعات : Research in English Language PedagogyNarges Sardabi 1 , Mansour Koosha 2
1 - Ershad Damavand University
2 - Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch (Khorasgan)
الکلمات المفتاحية: Communicative language teaching, Right Path to English, Textbook evaluation, Prospect 2, Tucker’s model,
ملخص المقالة :
Textbook design and evaluation has recently turned into a very important area in English Language Teaching. This paper evaluates the English textbooks taught in Iranian Junior high schools: Right Path to English which was the medium of instruction until 2013 and the recently designed textbook-Prospect- which replaced it. For this purpose, Tucker’s (1975) textbook evaluation model was employed to conduct the research. The advantages and shortcomings of the textbooks are discussed in detail with reference to three major criteria extracted from this model. The results indicate that even though Prospect does not cover up some of the inadequacies and deficiencies of RPE, the development of a textbook based on Communicative Language Teaching syllabus is, to a great extent, a step forward towards constructing an up-to-date series for teaching English in Iranian schools. Results of this study have implications both for teaching and materials development.
Amalsaleh, E. (2004). The representation of social actors in the EFL textbooks in Iran. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Shiraz University, Shiraz.
Ansary, H., & Babaii, E. (2002). Universal characteristics of EFL/ESL textbook: A step towards systematic textbook evaluation. The Internet TESL Journal, 2, 1-8.
Azizifar, A., Koosha, M., & Lotfi, A. R. (2010).An analytical evaluation of Iranian high school ELT textbooks from 1970 to the present. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 3, 36-44.
Borjian, M. (2013). English in Post-revolutionary Iran: From Indigenization to Internationalization, 29. Multilingual Matters.
Cunningsworth, A. (1984). Evaluating and selecting EFL teaching materials. London: Heinemann. Darali, G. (2007). Pragmatics dimension in
Spectrum textbooks. Unpublished master’s thesis, Shiraz University, Iran.
Ellis, R. (1997). The empirical evaluation of language teaching materials. ELT Journal,
51(1), 36-41.
Foroozandeh, E. (2011). History of High School English Course Books in Iran: 1318-1389 (1939-2010). Roshd Foreign Language Teaching journal, 26 (1), 57-69.
Gall, M.D., Borg, W.R., & Gall, J.P. (1996). Educational research: An introduction (6th ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman Publishers USA.
Genesee, F. (2001). Evaluation. In R. Carter, &
D. Nunan (Eds.), The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge: CUP, 144-150.
Jahangard, A. (2007). The evaluation of the EFL materials taught at Iranian public high schools. Karen’s Linguistics Issues. Retrieved October 12, 2015 from: http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/bymo nth.html.
Kheibari, S. (1999).Text analysis and evaluation of TEPSOL course books. Unpublished master's thesis, Shiraz University, Shiraz.
Littlewood, W. (1981): Communicative language teaching. Cambridge: CUP.
Long, M. (1985). A role for instruction in second language acquisition: Task-based language teaching. In K. Hyltenstam & M. Pienemann (Eds.), Modelling and assessing second language acquisition (pp. 77-99). San Diego: College-Hill Press.
Nunan, D. (2004). Task-based language teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paulston, C.B., & M.N. Bruder. (1976). Teaching
English as a second language: Techniques and procedures. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Riazi, A. M. (2003). What textbook evaluation schemes tell us? A study of the textbook evaluation schemes of three decades. In W.A. Renanda. (Ed.), Methodology and materials design in language teaching (pp. 52-68). Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Center.
Riazi, A.M., & Aryashokouh, A. (2007). Lexis in English textbooks in Iran: Analysis of exercises and proposals for consciousness-raising activities. Pacific Association of Applied Linguists, 11, 17-34.
Shahedi, S. (2001).Constructing an analytical framework for the analysis of Persian language texts for foreign learners. Unpublished master's thesis, Shiraz University, Shiraz. Iran.
Tomlinson, B. (2001). Materials development. In R. Carter, & D. Nunan (Eds.), The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages (pp. 66-71). Cambridge: CUP.
Tucker, C.A. (1975). Evaluating beginning textbooks. English Teaching Forum, 13, 335-61.
Widdowson, H.G. (2007). Discourse analysis (Vol. 20). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yarmohammadi, L. (2002). The evaluation of pre-university textbooks. The Newsletter of the Iranian Academy of Science, 18, 70-87.
