Textbook Analysis

Textbooks play a central role in language teaching and provide a valuable source for both teachers and learners. In relation with textbook Davison (1975) suggests that after the teacher the textbook is the most significant component in the foreign language classrooms. Few teachers enter class without a textbook which provides content and teaching/learning activities that form much of what happens in the classroom. Some students, in Mukundan and Ahour’s (2010, p. 336) words, rely deeply on the textbook as “an essential element of their learning material without which they do not consider the learning situation to be serious”. According to Tomlinson (2012), textbooks prepare learners for examinations, help teachers by reducing their

Indeed, as Williams believed, any textbook should be used in a wise way since not all information presented in a textbook suite the needs of different classrooms in the same way. Choosing a textbook for a class has been one of the most essential tasks for teachers. Whether the teacher should have the freedom to select the materials for evaluation and adaptation or not still remains controversial. The textbook is an instrument, and it is the teacher 's responsibility to know not only how to use it, but how useful it can

Hutchinson and Waters (1993, p. 96) indicate that materials evaluation should be performed to determine the suitability of the materials to our “particular purpose”. In different words, Hutchinson (1987) declare that materials evaluation helps the teachers in the selection of the teaching materials and the development of their awareness regarding the nature of language and learning.

As said by Sheldon (1988), there are some other causes for evaluating textbooks. It can help the teachers to have a good understanding of the content of the textbooks and to detect the advantages and disadvantages of the textbooks that are already being used. For Sheldon, all the textbooks in ELT should have outstanding features and qualifications, efficiency, and suitability for people who use them. Also, Cunningsworth (1995) remarks two reasons for textbook evaluation including adopting new course books and finding out the specific strengths and weaknesses in course books previously in