Comparison of speaking activities in Turkish and English language teaching coursebooks regarding self-assesment grid of CEFR (original) (raw)
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The basic goal of materials evaluation is selecting teaching materials which are appropriately relevant for a particular teaching context. In other words, evaluation is a “matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose” (Tok, 2010). The current study aims to carefully evaluate two ELT packages in Iran and Turkey. High school textbooks of general English courses prepared and published by the Ministry of Education in Iran were selected to represent the Iranian side; New Bridge to Success series which are taught in Turkish high schools was also selected for the purpose of comparison. Adopting ESL textbook evaluation checklist devised and prepared by Joshua Miekley (2005), the researchers carefully evaluated the two ELT packages. Considering all the important criteria any standardized checklist covers like content presentation, physical make-up, administration concerns, integration of skills, etc. the results showed that generally speaking NBS series was in a better position than ELT textbooks taught in Iranian high schools. It's not the case that NBS is a perfect textbook, but comparing to the Iranian version, its quality is in a better position, compatible with the global criteria standardized textbooks possess.
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This study sought to evaluate the English language coursebooks used at the Turkish public elementary schools. In so doing, a series of coursebooks used in English courses of the curriculum prepared by the Turkish Ministry of National Education were evaluated, using Tomlinson and Masuhara's (2013) set of coursebook evaluation universal criteria. Results indicated that the layout, listening skill, illustrations in use, and affective engagement are the positive traits of the coursebooks, while the negative features outnumber the positive traits. The evaluation indicated that the Turkish public elementary English coursebooks are void of a number of important aspects of language acquisition, including communication-based activities, continuation of using English outside of the classroom, discovery enhancing input and most importantly extensive exposure to English. The central focus of the coursebooks is on the accuracy and repetition rather than effective outcomes, meaningful communi...
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Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) seeks mutually comprehensible social interaction in spoken discourse. To serve this purpose, coursebooks undoubtedly play a key role as to how speaking practice takes place. In Turkey, local coursebooks are prescribed by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE); however, many practitioners seem to opt for the international alternatives. Considering the debate over qualitative adequacy, the current study compares two coursebooks in terms of the ground given to speaking skills. The method involves two 9 th grade English language coursebooks, Teenwise (local) and Talent 1 (international), being analysed via Taxonomy for Identification of Coursebook Speaking Activities (TICSA). Findings indicate that the international coursebook allocates slightly more space to speaking than the local book. TICSAwise, the local coursebook is two times more structural than the international coursebook. Whilst half the local coursebook is classified as quasi-communicative, the international one demonstrates an increase for these activities. Although both books ignore social interaction, the international coursebook has an edge over the local one in functional communication. These findings suggest that the local coursebook falls behind of the international counterpart for the teaching of speaking. Consequently, the adoption of a genuinely communicative mindset is discussed when developing language teaching materials so as to catch up with global publications and meet the pedagogical demands of CLT.