An Exploration on the Teachability 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 teachability perspectives. To do so, this descriptive-exploratory research employed 30 Iranian EFL teachers encouraged to attempt a questionnaire addressing the teachability 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 teachers positively evaluated the textbook in terms of its objectives, design and package, methodology, content selection and grading, language component presentation, discourse and style appropriateness, and listening skills presentation, although they held opposite perspectives on the components of language development. 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:

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