Vocabulary Consciousness-Raising Activities:The Case of ESP Books in Iran

Examining English for academic purposes' (EAP) textbooks has gained momentum in recent years. On the other hand, due to the large number of vocabulary items in English, utilizing consciousness-raising activities in textbooks would facilitate vocabulary learning and consequently language acquisition. Therefore, the present study aims at investigating vocabulary exercises incorporated in EAP textbooks using the consciousness-raising framework proposed by Willis and Willis (1996). In so doing, three textbooks namely English for the Students of Humanities (Literature and Languages, Arts, Architecture) (Farjami, 2018), English for the Students of Psychology ( Pishghadam & Boori, 2017), English for the Students of Sociology ( Keshavarz & Nushi Kochaksaraei, 2016), which were published by SAMT publishing house, were examined. The results indicated that in the books mentioned, non-consciousness raising exercises outnumbered consciousness-raising ones and among the categories of consciousness-raising activities, exercises on reference training enjoyed the highest frequency and cross-language exploration exercises were not identified in any of the three books. Given the fact that consciousness-raising exercises lead to facilitated learning, increased level of motivation, and learners' aggregated attention, it's recommended that authors of these books and as well as other authors publishing SAMT books take necessary actions to revise and include consciousness-raising activities in EAP books.