The Evaluation of the High School English Textbooks: A Task Type Perspective

Textbooks have always played a vital role in the process of language teaching and learning. A review of the literature on textbook evaluation shows the advantages of textbooks in most language programs. To address this important topic, this study aimed to investigate the type and frequency of tasks in six English textbooks (Prospect 1, Prospect 2, prospect 3, English Book 1, English Book 2, and English Book 3) which are currently in use in all Iranian high schools, utilizing Nunan’s (1999) framework composed of learning strategies including five main tasks and twenty minor task types. To this end, the researchers extracted all the tasks from the available textbooks, then classified these tasks according to the strategies underpinning them. The results of this study divulged that high school English textbooks were, to a large extent, devoid of fruitful tasks which engaged students in the arena of language learning; however, linguistic tasks had the highest frequency in the repertoire of all these textbooks. Furthermore, based on the results of Chi Square test, a significant difference among the frequency of task types accommodated in the target textbooks was found. Moreover, despite the fact that Prospect Series (prospect 1, prospect 2, and prospect 3) were newly published and were considered as new generation, they were not balanced in terms of the frequency of task types. Nevertheless, Prospect 3 proved to be the most balanced textbook among others with respect to the frequency of task types. The findings have significant implications for materials developers and EFL teachers.

Keywords:

high school English textbook , task-based language teaching , task types , textbook evaluation