A Content Analysis of the Grammar of Iranian Junior High School ELT Textbooks (Prospect) Based on Pedagogical Grammar Approach

Textbooks are the basis of school education and the main sources of information for teachers and students. Many researchers emphasize on the fact that textbooks have a lot of problems and shortcomings in terms of social, cultural, educational and linguistic aspects. Grammar teaching is one of the most important issues in language instruction. Thus the purpose of this research is to evaluate and analyze the grammatical content of Iranian junior high school English textbooks in the framework of Keck and Kim (2014) Pedagogical Grammar.Study Questions:1. To what extent do these textbooks comply with the principles of pedagogical grammar?2. According to the principles of pedagogical grammar, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the textbooks?Literature Review: Theoretical framework of this research is Keck and Kim (2014) Pedagogical Grammar. According to them the most important principles of pedagogical grammar are as follows:1. Learners' attentional resources are limited, thus stimulating their attention to the maximum, leads to better learning of language and consequently grammar.2. Paying attention to the relation between form, meaning and use is a necessity of pedagogical grammar.3. The preparation of the content of pedagogical grammar should be based on the linguistic corpora of the target language.4. In compiling the content of pedagogical grammar, the instruction of both grammar and lexical items must be considered.5. To consider the processing and learning abilities of the learners is important.6. Grammar instruction must be done both explicitly and implicitly.7. The use of different types of corrective feedback is very effective in grammar teaching.8. Intensive and extensive instruction of grammatical structures is helpful in language learning.9. The role and importance of language learners in learning grammar by other language learners is significant.10. The content of pedagogical grammar should be designed based on meaningful communication exercises and tasks. After extracting and introducing the principles of pedagogical grammar, a checklist based on them was designed which measures the compliance of the grammatical content of the books with the mentioned approach.. After the checklist items were developed, 15 experts in the field of English language teaching and linguistics were asked to express their views on the checklist and its items in detail and determine the content validity ratio and content validity index of the items, based on the Likert scale. In total, the necessity and relevance of 42 out of 50 initially designed items were confirmed. The score that these books have obtained out of 210 total score is 135, which is approximately 64% of the total score. Therefore, the compliance of the books with the principles of pedagogical grammar is above average. A qualitative analysis also revealed that in compiling the books, observing the principles of• implicit and explicit grammar teaching,• attention to lexis-grammar interface,• intensive and extensive instruction of grammatical structures,• form, meaning and use relation,• attention to learning and processing abilities of learners,• the use of various tools to draw the learner's attention to grammatical structures,are its strengths ando non-compliance with the communicative language teaching principles,o scanty and inappropriate input,o lack of attention to the linguistic corpora of the target language and unrealistic input,o inattention to the important of corrective feedback,o insufficient attention to the significance of learners in learning the grammatical points by their classmates ando insufficient attention to the importance of morphologyare the weaknesses of these books.