An Exploration on the Learnability of the Materials Developed for Iranian EFL Junior Secondary Program: Prospect I

Materials development and evaluation especially in the field of foreign or second language education have recently received momentum to the extent that the stake holders try to warrant compatibility between teaching - learning theories and those of syllabus design. Principles of teachability and learnability hypotheses seem sound enough to be incorporated in the development and evaluation of materials as a new trend in this field. To this end, this study was an attempt to approach the evaluation of the newly developed materials in the form of a series of textbook (i.e. called Prospect) for Iranian EFL Junior Secondary Program from the learnability perspective. To do so, this descriptive-exploratory research employed 303 students encouraged to attempt a questionnaire addressing the learnability tenets on one of the textbooks (i.e., Prospect I). Aimed to probing the components of the materials developed in terms of target tenets from the participants perspectives, the data analyses revealed that the materials meet the observations of learnability in terms of face validity of the textbook s physical design, lesson structure, language skills and lexical items presentations, and learning objectives from the students perspectives. However, they did not show unanimous in their evaluations of the components such as supplementary and visual aids, practices and activities, content, materials and grammatical presentation, though they were generally towards the learnability criteria of the Prospect I. The core message of this study for the stakeholders could be the necessity of serious and rigorous revisions, modifications or adaptations so that the expectations of all consumers can be met.

Keywords:

Learnability , Materials Evaluation , Materials Development , Iranian Junior Secondary Program , Prospect I