Evaluation of High School English Course Books in Iran: Task Types in Focus
الموضوعات :
Minoo Alemi
1
(TEFL Department, West Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran)
Kheirollah Ahmadi
2
(Kheirollah Ahmadi, M.A., West Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran)
Atefeh Rezanejad
3
(English Department, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran)
الکلمات المفتاحية: task types, Task-based language teaching, Evaluation of textbook, Nunan’s (1999) taxonomy, national English course book,
ملخص المقالة :
This study sought to examine the type and frequency of tasks in the Iranian high school English course books (Prospect 1, 2, 3 & English Book 1, 2, 3). The corpus was analyzed based on Nunan’s (1999) framework composed of five main task types, namely cognitive, interpersonal, linguistics, affective, and creative. To this end, the whole content of the aforementioned course books went through content analysis separately and accordingly descriptive and inferential results were reported regarding the frequency of each task type. The results showed that the linguistic tasks were the most recurrent type, whereas some task types (e.g., affective and creative) were totally absent. Furthermore, based on the results of Chi Square test, a significant difference was observed in the frequency of task types. While, according to communicative approach, communicative competence necessitates the inclusion of grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic competencies, the findings of the current study revealed that linguistic competence was overemphasized in these course books. This fact may lead to learners who are competent in producing linguistically appropriate utterances, which may at the same time be inappropriate with regard to context. The findings can have significant implications for EFL teachers and materials developers in making them conscious of the fact that the application of different types of tasks in textbooks is an important standard leading to more competent language users, especially in an EFL context like Iran.
Ahour, T., & Ahmadi, E. (2012). Retrospective evaluation of textbook “Summit 2B” for its suitability for EFL undergraduate students. Book of Proceedings of the International Conference on Human and Social Sciences, 6, 176-184.
Alavi Moghaddam, B., Kheir Abadi, R., Rahimi, M., & Alavi, M. (2015). Prospect 3. Tehran: Iran’s Textbooks Printing & Publishing Company.
Alavi Moghaddam, B., Kheir Abadi, R., Froozandeh Shahraki, E., Khadir Sharabian, Sh.,
& Nikoopoor, J. (2014). Prospect 2. Tehran: Iran’s Textbooks Printing & Publishing Company.
Alemi, M. & Hesami, Z. (2014). The presentation of different types of tasks in ELT text books. TELL, 8(1), 59-90.
Alemi, M., Jahangard, A., & Hesami, Z. (2013). A comparison of two global ELT coursebooks in terms of their task types. IARTEM e-Journal, 5(2), 42-63.
Alemi, M. & Mesbah, Z. (2013). Textbook evaluation based on the ACTFL standards: The case of top Notch series. Paper presented at the conference of the MATSDA/ university of Limerick, Ireland.
Allwright, R. L. (1981). What do we want teaching materials for? ELT Journal, 36(1), 5-18.
Amalsaleh, E. (2004). The representation of social actors in the EFL textbooks in Iran. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Shiraz University, Shiraz.
Asadi, M., Kiany, G. R., Akbari, R., & Samar, R. G. (2016). Program evaluation of the New English Textbook (prospect 1) in the Iranian Ministry of Education. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 6(2), 291-301.
Ayu, M., & Indrawati, R. (2019). EFL textbook evaluation: The analysis of tasks presented in English textbook. Teknosastik, 16(1), 21-25.
Birjandi, P., Noroozi, M., & Mahmoodi, Gh. (2002). English Book 2.Tehran: Iran’s Textbooks Printing & Publishing Company.
Birjandi, P., Noroozi, M., & Mahmoodi, Gh. (2003). English Book 3.Tehran: Iran’s Textbooks Printing & Publishing Company.
Birjandi, P., Soheili, A., Noroozi, M., & Mahmoodi, Gh. (2001). English Book 1.Tehran: Iran’s Textbooks Printing & Publishing Company.
Brown, A. L. & Day, J. D. (1983). Macro rules for summarizing texts: The development of expertise. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22, 1-14.
Brown, H. D. (1994). Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.
Buzan, T. (1993). The mind map book. London: BBC Books.
Celce-Murcia, M. (2001). Language teaching Approaches: An overview. In M. Celce-Muricia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd Ed.). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Chambliss, M. J., & Calfee, R. C. (1998). Textbooks for learning: Nurturing children’s minds. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cohn, T., Goldwater, S., & Blunsom, P. (2010). Inducing compact but accurate tree-substitution grammars. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Boulder, Colorado.
Dabbagh, A., & Safaei, A. (2019). Comparative textbook evaluation: Representation of learning objectives in locally and internationally published ELT textbooks. Issues in Language Teaching, 8(1), 249-277.
Das, M., Mpofu, D., Dunn, E., & Lanphear, J.H. (1998). Self and tutor evaluations in problem-based learning tutorials: Is there a relationship? Medical Education, 32(4), 411-418.
Elmiana, D. S. (2018). A critical analysis of tasks in senior high school EFL textbooks in Indonesia. Journal of Asia TEFL, 15(2), 462.
Finch, A. (1999). The Task-based Classroom in Practice, KOTESOL PROCEEDINGS of PAC2 (The Second Pan Asia Conference) Seoul, 179-190.
Garton, S., & Graves, K. (2014). Materials in ELT: Current issues. In S. Garton & K. Graves (Eds.), International perspectives on materials in ELT (pp. 1-15). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ghasemi, A. A., & Pasand, P. G. (2018). Pragmatic dimensions of Prospect Series: A textbook evaluation. Global Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 8(3), 76-86.
Gheinani, M. T., Tabatabaei, O., & Chakhorzadeh, S. (2017). Critical evaluation of Iranian junior high school textbooks (Prospect 1, 2, 3): Teachers’ view in focus. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 4(8), 541-255.
Goodarzi, A., Weisi, H., & Yousofi, N. (2020). CLT in Prospect Series: A predictive evaluation of Iranian junior high school English textbooks. Research in English Language Pedagogy, 8(1), 195-221.
Harmer, J. (2001).The practice of English language teaching (3rd Ed.). Harlow: Longman.
Jahangard, A. (2007). The evaluation of the EFL materials taught at Iranian public high schools (Karen’s Linguistics Issues). Retrieved from http://www3.telus.net/linguis-ticsissues/ tefliranian.html
Kheirabadi, R., & Alavimoghaddam, S. B. (2016). Evaluation of prospect series: A paradigm shift from GTM to CLT in Iran. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 7(3), 619-624.
Khadir Sharabian, Sh., Kheir Abadi, R., Alavi Moghaddam, B., Anani Sarab, M. R., Froozandeh Shahraki, E., & Ghorbani, N. (2013). Prospect 1. Tehran: Iran’s Textbooks Printing & Publishing Company.
Kohonen, V. (2001). Towards experiential foreign language education. In Kohonen, V., R. Jaatinen, P. Kaikkonen and J. Lehtovaara, Experiential learning in foreign language education, 8-60. London: Pearson Education.
Mizbani, M., & Chalak, A. (2017). Analyzing listening and speaking activities of Iranian EFL textbook Prospect 3 through Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 8(3), 38-43.
Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching and Learning. Boston: Heinle /Thomson.
O’Malley, J. M., & Chamot, A. Uhl. (1990). Learning strategies in second language acquisition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Oyabu, K. (1999). Engekiteki Shuhou wo Tsukatta Gogaku Kyouiku (Eigo) [Language Education through Dramatical Methods (English)]. Foreign Language Institute, Kanazawa University.
Papi, Z. (2015). Evaluation of Prospect 1 in terms of task types. International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 5(2), 238-244.
Paribakht, T. S., & Wesche, M. (1999). Reading and ‘incidental’ L2 vocabulary acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 195-229.
Rahimipour, M., & Hashemi, R. (2011).Textbook selection and evaluation in EFL context. World Journal of Education, 1(2), 62-68.
Rashidi, N., & Kehtarfard, R. (2014). A needs analysis approach to the evaluation of Iranian third-grade high school English textbook. SAGE Open, 4(3), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244014551709
Raz, H. (1985). Role-play in foreign language learning. System, 13(3), 225-229.
Razmjoo, S.A. (2007). High schools or private institute textbooks? Which fulfill communicative language teaching principles in the Iranian context? Asian EFL Journal, 9(4), 126-140.
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.
Riazi, A. M., & Mosalanejad, N. (2010). Evaluation of learning objectives in Iranian high school and pre-university English textbooks using Bloom’s taxonomy. TESL-EJ, 13(4). Retrieved from http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volu-me13/ej52/ ej52a5/
Richards, J. C. (2001). Curriculum development in language education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sadeghi, S. (2020). Evaluation of EFL textbooks from teachers’ viewpoints on the ninth grade high school Prospect 3 based on Ghorbani’s checklist. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 7(3), 47-61.
Scane, J., Guy, A. M., & Wenstrom, L. (1991). Think, write, share: Process writing for adult ESL and basic education students. Toronto: The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Washington, V. M. (1988). Report writing: A practical application of semantic mapping. Teacher Educator, 24, 24-30.
Yarmohammadi, L. (2002). The evaluation of pre-university textbooks. The Newsletter of the Iranian Academy of Science, 18, 70-8.
Zohrabi, M., Sabouri, H., & Kheradmand, M. (2014). Comparative study of Interchange1 and English book1 of Iranian high schools. Education International Journal of English, 3(2), 95-104.
