Screening EFL Teachers' Perception on ‘Prospect 3’: The Case of Micro and Macro Evaluation

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of English Language and Literature, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran

Abstract

‘Prospect’ is the name allocated to three consecutive ELT textbooks designed for three grades of junior high schools in Iran. As Richards (2007) maintains, when a textbook is developed and used for an ELT context, its evaluation is even more important because its pedagogical value needs to be determined. In order to help material developers of Iran’s Ministry of Education modify ‘Prospect’ series and lessen the probable shortcomings, this study aims to evaluate one of the series according to a model provided by McDonough and Shaw (1993) based on external and internal evaluation through screening the attitudes of EFL teachers (230 female and 290 male) who have been incorporating ‘Prospect 3’ in their classrooms during the last five years in four provinces of Iran-Fars, Mazandaran, Golestan and Gilan. A 55-five-point Likert-scale questionnaire was adopted to gather data. The researchers employed SPSS to analyze the data, and it was revealed that the respondents were relatively satisfied with some crucial aspects of ‘Prospect 3’, and it has met its pedagogical objectives. However, it was evaluated very poor in printing quality and did lack motivating illustrations. Not considering the needs of the learners, not incorporating authentic language and variant dialects, and not using specific techniques to make the input more comprehensible, were among other recommended shortcomings that need modification.

Keywords


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