چکیده:
A key component of any educational program is the "textbook", the efficiency of which greatly contributes to the accomplishment of the pedagogical goals of the program. The grave significance of the textbook necessitates its rigorous evaluation (Tomlinson, 2008). This study aimed to investigate EFL teachers’ and students’ perspectives on a recently developed Iranian EFL junior high school textbook entitled “Prospect 3”. The participants were 218 third-grade junior high school students and 103 EFL teachers conveniently selected from different junior high schools of Khuzestan, Golestan, Hamedan, and Qom provinces. The evaluation of the textbook was carried out quantitatively through a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire. The analyses revealed that EFL teachers were partially satisfied with Prospect 3; however, EFL students were rather neutral. For the teachers, "Vocabulary and Grammar" was the most meritorious aspect, while "Language Type" was the least acceptable dimension. Form the students' perspective, the most meritorious aspect of the text was "Vocabulary and Grammar", while "Layout and Physical Appearance " was viewed as the least satisfactory dimension. The findings of this work might be of interest for Iranian EFL teachers, syllabus designers, materials developers and the stakeholders involved in the materials preparation Bureaus of Iranian Ministry of General Education.
خلاصه ماشینی:
A Checklist-Based Evaluative Study of English Textbook “Prospect 3” from Teachers’ and Students’ Perspectives Mohammad Ahmadi Safa1, Fatmeh Karampour2 1 Corresponding author, Associate Professor, English Language Department, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Bu Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran, Email: m.
The analyses revealed that the participating teachers were not satisfied with several aspects of the text including layout and design, the exercises and activities, the integration of the four skills, teachers’ book, grammar, vocabulary, language functions, and the proposed teaching methodology of the text.
It consists of 60 five-point Likert scale items addressing 7 aspects of the textbook: 1) layout and formatting 2) activities and exercises 3) content and language skills 4) supplementary materials and teacher’s guide 5) language types 6) methodology and 7) vocabulary and grammar.
Almost 48 percent of the teachers agreed the textbook content is reviewed and recycled throughout the book and the learners learning of new content is evaluated through different tasks and activities (item 18).
12 had the lowest value indicating that the teachers had a rather negative attitude towards opportunities which were provided for EFL students’ language use, whereas item 28 with the mean of 3.
Discussion This study aimed to investigate EFL teachers’ and students’ perspectives on a recently developed Iranian EFL junior high school textbook entitled “Prospect 3” from seven aspects including layout and formatting, activities and exercises, content and language skills, supplementary materials, and teacher’s guide, language types, methodology and, vocabulary and grammar items.