Evaluation of the English language coursebooks used at the Turkish public elementary schools

Abstract

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 communication and long term language acquisition. Most activities in all coursebooks contain practice activities, with no place for productivity and autonomy on the part of the students. Additionally, there is no sufficient personalization and the coursebooks fail to make use of what students bring to classroom. Nor are the learners required to think critically, creatively or analytically in most of the activities. The coursebooks do not encourage learners to continue learning English by themselves, thus lacks encouragement for autonomy as well. The activities are designed to practice language items within the classroom environments. Hence, learning does not go beyond the classroom environment with the help of the coursebooks. Nor do the coursebooks guide or encourage learners to make discoveries by themselves. The bombardment of repetitive practice activities that only assess accuracy does not seem to be able to lead to long-term acquisition of English.