An Analytical Detailed Evaluation of General English Textbook

Textbooks, in every class including a foreign language teaching class, in every level, and in every educational center – schools and universities – play the pivotal role in the process of teaching and learning. As such, developing and using suitable and related criteria for the evaluation of textbooks in foreign language teaching classes are of great significance. For this evaluation to take place, theoreticians and researchers have developed different evaluation frameworks based on certain principles and criteria. One of these frameworks that has been applied in many studies is developed by Littlejohn (1998). The present study not only aims to evaluate the Payame Noor University General English textbook on the basis of this framework to determine its strong and weak points as well as its explicit features, but also tries to see whether they are in line with the objectives set for it. To achieve these goals, three English language university instructors after studying the abovementioned textbook, rated the evaluation checklists developed within Littlejohn's framework (1998). Results of the study show that although there are a number of shortcomings in this textbook, it stands up reasonably well to a detailed and in-depth analysis, and therefore its positive attributes far outweighed its shortcomings.