Document Type : Research

Authors

• Ahmad Ramezani ¹
• Payvand Mihandoust ²

¹ Assistant Professor, Institute for Exceptional Children, Organization for Educational Research and Planning (OERP)

² MA in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Islamic Azad University, Central Branch, Tehran

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to analyze English language teaching program for students with intellectual disabilities, and review the English course book (student book and workbook developed for 7^th graders with intellectual disabilities) as well as the teachers’ guide. The method applied was descriptive–analytic. Regarding the proposed criteria by the Council for Reviewing Books and Texts on Humanities, strengths and weaknesses in terms of form and content were presented. The vital strong points were presenting frequent language functions and social routines, and color printing of the student book. The crucial weaknesses included the old-fashioned way of teaching English alphabets, the inappropriate method of introducing numbers, designing improper activities regarding the students’ capabilities, and the low quality of the pictures both in student book and workbook. For reviewing the teacher’s guide, the evaluation criteria proposed by Hemsley (1997) known as global evaluation and detailed evaluation, has been applied. The strong points of the teachers’ guide were providing clear teaching guidelines, considering learning procedures based on recent researches and modern theories, presenting the objective of the course, and providing appropriate guidelines for evaluation. Some of the weaknesses were ignoring students’ different learning styles, not introducing appropriate way of error correction, and inappropriate bookbinding. At last, some suggestions were proposed to ameliorate both the quality and the content of the course book and work book considering the students’ capabilities.

Keywords

• English
• Students with Intellectual Disabilities
• Student Book
• Workbook
• Teacher’s Guide
• Prevocational Program
• 7th Grade
• Review

Main Subjects

• Foreign Languages