Persian Language Material Evaluation for Non-Iranian Students: An Analysis of the Persian Textbook “Mina”

Influential educational resources are considered significant criteria for enhancing the quality of teaching and learning Persian language. However, it is a challenging task to design and afford the Persian language learners worldwide with appropriate instructional materials to meet their language needs. As informative instructional resources, textbooks play an essential role in Persian language programs and they can considerably motivate Persian language learners. Hence, it would be logical to evaluate the content and structure of Persian language textbooks from different perspectives. The relevant literature documents various checklist for evaluating the usefulness and appropriateness of language textbooks. Miekley’s (2005) checklist is considered as an effective criterion for language textbook evaluation. This checklist is comprised of five categories analyzing the textbooks from teachers and learners’ perspectives.This study used this checklist to evaluate the textbook of "Mina". The main purpose of the study was to shed light on whether this newly designed textbook could meet the needs of the Persian language practitioners. Results showed that from the point of view of the teachers, the fourth indicator of the "texture" theme is only significant (sig <0.05). The results also indicate that for the other 9 main indicators, they are not significant and in optimal condition. These findings could bring insightful understandings for Persian language teachers and may help them to fix its shortcomings in classrooms with other teaching materials.