پژوهش نامه انتقادی متون و برنامه های علوم انسانی
پیاپی 36 (پاییز 1394)

The present study aimed at investigating the Iranian EFL teachers’ perspectives on the Intercultural Competence development potentiality of an Iranian ELT textbook named “Prospect One”. To this end, 70 teachers were chosen for answering a researcher-made questionnaire, 22 of whom participated in the interview. The findings revealed that the evaluated textbook lacked the necessary potential for developing Intercultural Competence. Interview results showed that (a) both previous Iranian ELT textbooks and the current one demonstrated a weak performance for developing Intercultural Competence; (b) the current book lacked intercultural objectives; (c) with regard to its cultural and intercultural features, students did not consider the current book to be appropriate; (d) different tasks in the book did not intend to reinforce Intercultural Competence; and (e) the lack of foreign language culture and other cultures’ introduction, fanatical and dogmatic views on human relations, and over-nativization were among the major pitfalls of the Prospect One.

It is crystal clear that stepping stones of each educational system hinge on its books and educational materials. That is why many teachers and scholars try to criticize and improve the school books. The present paper aims at criticizing and analyzing English book in 7th grade of middle school in Iran. Based on the Developmental, Individual-differences, Relationship-based Model (DIR) and Emotion-based Language Instruction, the researchers attempted to conduct interviews with a number of 7th grade students to pin down the amount of their interests and satisfactions with the vocabularies and images of this book. In this interview, 60 students of 7th grade were asked to elaborate on the level of their interests to learn the book. Furthermore, 10 English language teachers were interviewed to express their emotional reactions to the vocabularies. The results of the study indicated that neither the students nor the teachers were emotionally satisfied with the book. Finally, the results were discussed and some suggestions were made in the context of English language learning and materials development.

The present study investigates the cultural and identity parameters manifested in the seventh grade English language textbook (Prospect 1) at Iranian schools. The primary focus of the study was on the characters, locales, apparel, foods, drinks, and professions presented in the book. The analysis of this textbook was based on content analysis, interview with 8 teachers and 12 domain experts in language teaching who had taught and analyzed the book respectively. The results of this analysis showed that the authors of the book were not successful enough in communicating and manifesting the cultural points in the book. The whole book was designed based on the Iranian local culture, as explicated by the Iranian Ministry of Education,shying away from the international cultural points. In addition, most of, if not wholly, cultural and identity issues of Tehran were highlighted and the parameters of other ethnicities and cultures were marginalized or totally neglected. Based on the findings achieved, some guidelines are provided at the end of the paper.

The present study is conducted to analyze Prospect 1 (7th grade) according to functional approach. So, different processes will be categorized and compared based on the experiential metafunction introduced in systemic functional grammar (Halliday and Matthissen, 2014). The research follows a descriptive-analytic method. The text of the book (instructions, conversations, and lessons) is classified into six process types including material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal and existential. Then, the usage pattern of each will be demonstrated. For a better comparison the book is divided into four parts (each consisting of two lessons, exercises and the review). The results show that among 509 processes in the book, relational (36 %) is the most frequent one. The percentage frequencies of other processes are as follows: material (27%), behavioral (19%), verbal (14%), mental (4%), and existential (less than 1%). In the last two parts of the book, the percentage frequency of the relational process decreases. On the contrary, that of material process increases. The use of behavioral process is decreased to the end of the book while mental process reaches its highest occurrence in the last part of the book. In general, 60 different verbs (types) have been used in the book: material (35 verbs), mental (7 verbs), relational (4 verbs), behavioral (6 verbs), verbal (7 verbs), and existential (1 verb)

In line with the recent developments in English language teaching in the Iranian context and the changes in schools’ textbooks and materials, the present study aimed to evaluate English for Schools (Prospect 1; Junior Secondary Program) from the viewpoint of task-based language teaching and syllabus design. To this end, Ellis’s (2003) general task framework was utilized. Exercises in all eight lessons of the book were analyzed based on this framework and afterwards, based on the given criteria, their nature was studied. The findings showed that only 16 out of a total of 57 exercises (28%) had a task-based structure/design. Thus, it can be claimed that the book’s design does not follow a task-based approach. Failure to use authentic input, scarcity of interactions opportunities between students, and numerous exercises (drills) which lacked useful outcomes can be counted as the main reasons for the gap between this publication’s design from a task-based approach and its eventual lack of efficiency.

As a piece of mixed-method research, the present study scrutinized the English book, namely Prospect 1 or Book 7, for first- grade junior secondary school both subjectively and objectively. To this end, 21 teachers completed an expert-judged, 23- item five-point Likert-scale ELT book evaluation questionnaire. Ten of the teachers, who were selected randomly and whose informed consent was also obtained, sat a semi-structured interview as well. The researcher also evaluated Book 7 subjectively drawing upon the 23-criteria checklist mentioned above especially with regard to representation of such crucial critical discourse analysis features as gender and power relations. The results of descriptive statistics of the questionnaire and content analysis of interviews revealed although Book 7 enjoyed such advantages as emphasis on aural-oral skills, relatively proper physical lay-out, and availability of supplementary materials, it suffered such serious shortcomings as lack of authentic materials and existence of culturally- biased materials. The materials and topics were also found not to be of interest to both students and teachers and the situations and functions were found to be mainly restricted to a certain context (i.e. classroom and school). Also the results of inferential statistics (i.e. Chi- square analysis) revealed there was a statistically significant difference between representation of males and that of females in the Book. However, no significant difference was detected between equal and unequal power relations.

“Prospect 1” is a newly designed and published book for English learners at high schools in Iran. The authors’ aimhas been to localize the content, form, and pictures of the book based on the Iranian culture. In particular, the purpose of this study was to analyze the pictures of the book from the point of views of Turkish, Persian, and Kurdish (Kormanj) students. The instruments used in the study were a questioner designed and validated by the researchers and a semi-structured interview. One hundred eighty two subjects (48 Kurdish, 77 Turkish, and 57 Persianstudents) were chosen as the participants of the study. Using Chi square, the analysis of the results showed that some pictures were not appropriately selected and the learners showed differences in understanding and interpreting the meaning and purposes of these pictures. It was concluded that when selecting pictures, it is better to consider sub cultures in Iran, too.

The current study was conducted to evaluate 7th grade English course book entitled Prospect 1, which is the most recently designed English textbook intended as the initial instructional material for Iranian schools. To this end, Cisar’s (2000) model which is used to evaluate language books and reflects the principles of American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) was applied. Furthermore, to run a more comprehensive analysis of the book, Basturkmen’s (2006) framework was utilized, as well. The findings of the current research indicate that though the authors of Prospect 1 have succeeded, to a large extent, in alleviating the pitfalls of the previous series, it seems that the entire book configuration still suffers from a number of serious drawbacks. Among these ostensible shortcomings mention can be made of the partial inadequacy of audiovisual resources used in the book. Furthermore, the occasional inclusion of some aspects of target culture in addition to those of Iranian culture might help ameliorate the efficiency of the book. Finally, using more variety in designing the book exercises might help augment learners’ motivation.

Learning any language has its own specific constraints and problems; English language learning is not an exception. One of the most important problems in learning English language is the quality of textbooks. Since “Prospect 1” is Iranian students’ first formal contact with English language in their schooling programs, designing and developing this book is of crucial significance and logically requires the authors’ more sophistication and precision. Therefore, evaluating and analyzing the content of this book can be an effectual undertaking in diagnosing the strengths and weaknesses where of. The main objective of the present study was to evaluate and analyze this textbook qualitatively on the basis of scientific criteria and eventually identify its merits and demerits especially with regard to the methodology of teaching a foreign language. To do so, 18 EFL teachers and 25 students were interviewed. Then, using content-analysis of the interviewees’ responses and also the analysis and inspection of the book’s content, the most important strong and weak points were discussed in the article.

The importance and the exigency to evaluate second or foreign language teaching materials are largely recognized among the experts in the field. In addition, the significant role of grammar in second language acquisition and the emergence of various new concepts and approaches to teaching this aspect of language cannot be denied. The current study, therefore, attempts a qualitative evaluation of the Iranian Schools Seventh Grade English book, that is, Prospect 1 English for Schools Series, from the perspective of Larsen-Freeman’s concept of grammaring. The results revealed that compared with former books of the same grade, the above-mentioned book has detached from the traditional approach to grammar instruction and has taken steps forward to an ability-oriented approach. In some aspects, however, the book does not seem to proceed significantly in terms of providing more tangible social contexts for communication, and the dull mechanical exercises existing in traditional approaches seem to be still common in the book.

Recently the textbooks have been analyzed under the light of multiple intelligences theory in Iran. Using Botelho (2003) multiple intelligences checklist to count the catered-for types of intelligences in the exercises and activities, the present study investigated the very recently designed textbook namely “Prospect Two” used in the second junior high state school in Iran. The frequency counts showed that verbal/Linguistic was the most preponderantly used intelligence followed by interpersonal type. However visual/spatial and bodily/kinesthetic intelligences were found in much lower ratios, logical/mathematical, musical, intrapersonal and naturalistic intelligences were not found throughout “Prospect Two”. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further studies are represented.