Foreign Languages
Simin Sattarpour; Assef Khalili; Maryam Zeinolabedini
Abstract
Book evaluation is considered a prerequisite to developing or republicating educational books. Therefore, utilizing an evaluation checklist, 12 university professors, selected through purposive and convenience sampling, evaluated two ESP books in nursing, published by Oxford University Press and SAMT. ...
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Book evaluation is considered a prerequisite to developing or republicating educational books. Therefore, utilizing an evaluation checklist, 12 university professors, selected through purposive and convenience sampling, evaluated two ESP books in nursing, published by Oxford University Press and SAMT. The findings of the qualitative analysis revealed that the book published by SAMT, no longer seems suitable for today's students. Quantitative analysis indicated that Mean score given to SAMT’s book was significantly lower than Oxford’s. Despite the lack of visual appeal and audio-video files, little variety in the teaching and testing methods, with the old reading-oriented approach, without paying attention to phonetics and grammatical issues, and being far from the language teaching theories, this book has recently been republished for the nineteenth time. Although the problems underlined in SAMT’s book are not observed in the Oxford’s, this book is not error-free, either. It does not fully meet the needs of Iranian students since its major focus is on language use in the career-related contexts with an equal attention to all skills. This comparison can help the authors and syllabus designers in the field of nursing to prepare, compile, and edit books, using the strengths of the existing books.
Foreign Languages
Alireza Rasti
Abstract
The present research aimed at analyzing the book Principles and Methodology of Translation in terms of its formal characteristics, content, and methodology, using the critical library research method in general and McDonough, Shaw, and Masuhara’s (2013) textbook evaluative framework in particular. ...
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The present research aimed at analyzing the book Principles and Methodology of Translation in terms of its formal characteristics, content, and methodology, using the critical library research method in general and McDonough, Shaw, and Masuhara’s (2013) textbook evaluative framework in particular. The findings showed that, despite the groundbreaking nature of the book, in terms of the methodology, the book does not adhere to any one linguistic theory in a systematic way, and that it presents some concepts in a rather food-recipe fashion. Content-wise, the book does not offer any big picture of the science and practice of translation, its domain, and history. Some suggestions are finally made in an attempt to enhance the quality of the book.
Foreign Languages
Mavadat Saidi; Soheila Nasiri
Abstract
English for academic purposes materials primarily focus on developing and enhancing the university students’ reading skills. The current study aimed to evaluate and compare the reading comprehension questions in the old and new generations of EAP textbooks published by SAMT. To this end, the reading ...
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English for academic purposes materials primarily focus on developing and enhancing the university students’ reading skills. The current study aimed to evaluate and compare the reading comprehension questions in the old and new generations of EAP textbooks published by SAMT. To this end, the reading comprehension questions in ten EAP textbooks (five old and five new) were identified and categorized in light of Freeman’s (2014) taxonomy. The results indicated that almost half of the questions were related to the Content category in the old textbooks while the highest frequency in the new ones belonged to the Language questions. Moreover, Lexical and Implicit comprehension types were the most frequent questions in both old and new textbooks. With regard to the Affect category, the evaluation type was the most common one. The results of Chi-square tests also revealed a significant difference between old and new EAP textbooks in terms of the frequency of content and language questions while no significant difference was found considering the effect questions. The findings of the current study carry pedagogical implications for EAP course design and material development.
Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Amirreza Vakilifard; Roqayeh Habibi
Abstract
Following the theories and achievements of language didactics and also with the emphasis on form and meaning, there are several approaches in a syllabus on its compiling methods, content selection and organizing the selected elements. Such an approach which is task-based curriculum development has focused ...
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Following the theories and achievements of language didactics and also with the emphasis on form and meaning, there are several approaches in a syllabus on its compiling methods, content selection and organizing the selected elements. Such an approach which is task-based curriculum development has focused on the semantic and communicative dimension rather than the grammatical one fundamentally and has attracted the attention of language educators since the last decade of the previous century. In teaching Persian language to non-Persian, this approach has not been accomplished deeply in any field of studies or analytical ones. Owing to the importance of syllabus content in language teaching, this research, whilst introducing the task-oriented approach, examines the effectiveness of the tasks in the second and the third volume from the 7-volume textbook series, "Teaching the Persian Language in Persian", from the point of analyzing the implementation of principles for the task-oriented approach. A questionnaire, with subscales of the task definitions, task components, task framework, task difficulty, and the empirical basis for task-based language teaching which focuses on form in task-based language teaching, is used to explore the evaluation of the two mentioned volumes. The results deduced from the survey of these two volumes, among 40 Iranian instructors and 40 non-Iranian students from two high educational institutions show that the implementation of curriculum design principles based on task-orientated approach is average in those volumes, on both quantitative and qualitative scale and it is still far from a satisfactory level. The results of this study help the educational syllabus designers to design and create curriculums for teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers more efficiently, as well the instructors to teach communicative competence in classrooms.
Educational Science
Mohammad Armand
Abstract
Textbooks are one of the most important teaching tools. Therefore, it is necessary to be very careful about how they are designed and edited. Works on textbook design and authoring have been published, one of which is textbook research and writing that can be used by scholars, authors, and textbook contributors. ...
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Textbooks are one of the most important teaching tools. Therefore, it is necessary to be very careful about how they are designed and edited. Works on textbook design and authoring have been published, one of which is textbook research and writing that can be used by scholars, authors, and textbook contributors. In this article, this book has been criticized, using a critical philosophical research. The importance of this book in reflecting the wide range of textbook research in the world, its being research-oriented, and addressing fundamental issues are among the advantages. The benefits of this book include the use of various tools to understand more about the contents, such as charts and tables, and the type of letters and their size. Its disadvantages include failure to rationalize the content and misinterpretation of some concepts, lack of proper design and contrast of colors, and inappropriate margins and unattractiveness.
Foreign Languages
Ayatollah Fazelimania; Shadi Donyaie; Moslem Yousefi; Nasser Ranjbar; Fatemeh Hafez
Abstract
With the central role of textbooks, particularly, in centralized educational systems such as that of Iran where a single textbook is recommended for nation-wide use, evaluation textbooks, especially whilst-use evaluation, can highlight points of strength and weakness in a book and pave the way for its ...
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With the central role of textbooks, particularly, in centralized educational systems such as that of Iran where a single textbook is recommended for nation-wide use, evaluation textbooks, especially whilst-use evaluation, can highlight points of strength and weakness in a book and pave the way for its improvement in later editions. The present study set to evaluate Vision 1, English textbook for grade 10 in the new Iranian educational system. To this end, a questionnaire taken from Ahmadisafa et al. (1396) was distributed among 150 English teachers (selected from different provinces of the country through convenience sampling). Furthermore, 20 of the above teachers responded to a researcher-designed semi-structured interview involving: 1) general evaluation of the book, 2) advantages of the book over those previously used, 3) viewpoints of the teachers' over realization of the aims of the book, 4) its points of weakness, and 5) the teachers' suggestions for improvements in its later editions. The results indicated that the teachers were relatively satisfied with: 1) supplementary materials and teacher's book, 2) grammar, vocabulary and language functions, 3) content and language skills, 4) tasks and exercises, 5) design and layout, and 6) teaching methodology. However, the interview revealed the teachers' relative dissatisfaction with the book, with most of them considering the book unsuccessful in fulfilling the set objectives.
Foreign Languages
Mohammad Ahmadi Safa; Shadi Donyaee; Shilan Sohrabi; Mojtaba Farahani; Dayan Khasemi; Elahe Saeedpanah
Volume 18, Issue 8 , December 2018, , Pages 1-24
Abstract
This study set out to evaluate a rather newly developed textbook entitled "Prospect I". The textbook is developed as the main text for the nationwide application at the first grade of high school English courses by the Iranian ministry of education. To this end, a researcher-made questionnaire was developed ...
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This study set out to evaluate a rather newly developed textbook entitled "Prospect I". The textbook is developed as the main text for the nationwide application at the first grade of high school English courses by the Iranian ministry of education. To this end, a researcher-made questionnaire was developed and pilot tested. Bartlett's test of Sphericity, Keiser-Meyer-Olkin sampling adequacy measure, exploratory factor analysis and factor loadings, and Cronbach's Alpha measure of internal consistency were all run on the pilot study data, and the results verified acceptable levels of validity and reliability for the questionnaire. The validated questionnaire was given to 188 high school English teachers chosen based on convenience sampling procedure from seven provinces of the country. Moreover, 146 teachers sat for a semi-structured interview. The questionnaire and interview data analyses results revealed that the participating teachers were not satisfied with several aspects of the text including layout and design, the exercises and activities, the integration of the four skills, teachers book, grammar, vocabulary, language functions, and the proposed teaching methodology of the text.
Foreign Languages
Ali Derakhshan
Volume 18, Issue 8 , December 2018, , Pages 51-73
Abstract
In spite of the quintessential significance to integrate language and culture, there have been few attempts to investigate the cultural elements of English teaching textbooks based on a valid framework. Consequently, the purpose of this exploratory study was to describe how culture has been addressed ...
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In spite of the quintessential significance to integrate language and culture, there have been few attempts to investigate the cultural elements of English teaching textbooks based on a valid framework. Consequently, the purpose of this exploratory study was to describe how culture has been addressed in the second edition of six textbooks of American English File Series (Latham-Koenig, Oxenden, & Boyle, 2013), taught in the private institutes in Iran. To this end, a model of cultural patterns, developed by Zarei and Khalessi (2011), was utilized to analyze the content of the series. The model has four constituents of value, norm, institution, and artifact. Overall, the results indicated that textbooks are artifacts which are strongly grounded in cultural assumptions and biases. Moreover, results revealed that these instructional materials are filled with cultural values unique to the Western world, the most prevalent of which include girlfriend-boyfriend relationship, consumerism, lack of studying, Western music, artifacts, lack of trust between the couples, rate of divorce and break-up, and inculcation of Western culture. It is concluded that textbooks are carriers of cultural values that not only transfer knowledge but also inculcate the cultural values of the native speakers of that language. Therefore, the role of the English teachers in prompting intercultural competence is to preserve the Iranian cultural heritage and values and make a balance between the integration of culture and language.
Foreign Languages
Reza Taherkhani; Rahime Karbakhsh Ravari; Robab Zamani Jamshidi
Volume 18, Issue 8 , December 2018, , Pages 231-253
Abstract
Critical evaluation of language learning books is a vital step in a successful curriculum. The need is especially conspicuous for newly-published materials. Consequently, the present paper tried to explore and evaluate the ESP book entitled English for the Students of Sociology recently written ...
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Critical evaluation of language learning books is a vital step in a successful curriculum. The need is especially conspicuous for newly-published materials. Consequently, the present paper tried to explore and evaluate the ESP book entitled English for the Students of Sociology recently written by Mohammad Hossein Kesharvarz and Musa Nushi Kochaksaraie and published by SAMT in 2016. The paper critically examined the overall pedagogical value and suitability of the book. To achieve this goal, the book was evaluated based on Mahmoodi and Ahmadi Safa’s (2015) model. Semi-structured interviews based on the model were also conducted to delve into content teachers’ perspectives who were specialists in sociology. Seven experts in the field of sociology from Bu-Ali Sina, Ilam and Guilan universities were interviewed by the researchers. The results showed that the new book has improved quite dramatically compared to the previous book published by SAMT. Moreover, the findings revealed that in spite of some deficiencies in the selection of the activities, exercises, and texts, the book is suitable and can be used as an ESP source. The researchers provide some useful suggestions for improving the shortcomings of the book.
Foreign Languages
Mohammad Hadi Mahmoodi
Volume 18, Issue 8 , December 2018, , Pages 287-304
Abstract
Textbook evaluation is one of the important steps in developing instructional materials process. The present article evaluates and criticizes the book English for the Students of Engineering (Atai, Zare Alanagh, Nasiri, Taherkhani & Iranmehr, 2016), which belongs to the new generation of ...
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Textbook evaluation is one of the important steps in developing instructional materials process. The present article evaluates and criticizes the book English for the Students of Engineering (Atai, Zare Alanagh, Nasiri, Taherkhani & Iranmehr, 2016), which belongs to the new generation of English for specific purposes (ESP) textbooks. To this end, the textbook evaluation model proposed by Mahmoodi and Ahmadisafa (2014) was used. This model is specifically designed for evaluating ESP books. This study showed that this book, in contrast to previous ESP books developed by SAMT, has higher technical qualities and conforms to scientific theories and experimental findings in the field of TEFL. However, besides its advantages, this book suffers from some weak points which are discussed below.
