Courebook and evaluation

1
Textbook Analysis

• Duhok University/ Akre Faculty
• English Department
• Instructor Saad Ibrahim
• 20/10/2015
• Email saadzibary_at_yahoo.com

2
What is textbook

• textbooks that every student and teacher has,
  that are followed as the basics for a language
  course (Ur 1996).

3
Textbooks are often accompanied with

• teachers manual
• students handbook
• workbook.
• Some of them offer additional materials such as
  CDs, cassette tapes, tests, extra resources,
  videos, mini-dictionary and a mini-reference
  book.
• All the components of coursebooks such as CDs,
  workbooks and teachers guide are supplementary
  aids.

4
Why textbooks are important?

• Coursebooks are universal elements of English
  language teaching.
• No teaching/learning situation is complete
  without its associated coursebooks (Hutchinson
  and Torres 1994). They are the route map for an
  ELT program (Sheldon 1988), playing a pivotal
  role in the language learning.
• Sheldon (1988237) goes on to label them the
  visible heart of any ELT program and Davison
  (1976) considers them the second most important
  factor after teacher roles.
• In fact, without coursebooks it could be very
  difficult or impossible for ELT teachers to teach
  their students (Nunan 1999)

5
What coursebooks includes?

• Grammar
• pronunciation
• vocabulary
• receptive and productive skills.
• And so forth

6
What is meant by Analysis

• Theorists, including Waters and Hutchinson
  (1987), Sheldon (1988) and Tomlinson (2001) all
  offer various definitions of evaluation.
  Sheldon (1988245) is probably closest to the
  truth when he asserts that in fact, textbook
  evaluation 'is fundamentally a subjective, and
  that no neat formula, grid or system will ever
  provide a definitive yardstick.

7
Analysis

• Evaluation can basically be a matching process
  which matches the learners needs with the
  available solutions (Hutchinson and Waters 1987).
  

8
Why we analyse textbook?

• for assessing and selecting the most useful
  coursebook for the situation in hand becomes
  critical.
• Evaluation paves the ways for teachers, each
  teaching institution and policy maker to
  discriminate amongst all the available commercial
  textbooks by identifying the weak and strong
  points for coursebooks.

9
Why we analyse textbook?

• Ellis (1997) goes as far as to claim that the
  coursebook appraisal assists teachers to move
  beyond the impressionistic analysis and help them
  to acquire systematic, accurate, useful and
  contextual insights into the nature of textbooks.
  

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Types of appraisal

• pre use (Predictive)
• In Use
• After use (retrospective)

11
pre use (Predictive)

• The former is the most common evaluation used to
  select the published materials which have the
  highest potential educational values. This type
  of evaluation tends to the more difficult one
  because evaluators do not have experience and
  knowledge of coursebooks. However, this way is
  very quick and useful if it is done by an
  effective and experienced teacher (Cunningsworth
  1995).

12
In use

• The second is to evaluate the textbooks that are
  currently being used. It is used to find the
  suitability of the coursebooks while using them.

13
After Use (retrospective)

• The latter evaluation is of coursebooks that have
  been used comprehensively, to assess the short
  and long term implications of continued use of
  the coursebooks (Tomlinson 2003b).