An Evaluation of English Textbooks of class VI,VII, & VIII

Abstract

The topic for this study is evaluation of the English text books of class vi, vii & viii. It is well known that language performance or language learning is psychological processes that involves the ability to record, or takes the inputs and convert into outputs or skills. The study with the acknowledges the fact that English Language skills of our students are very bad. A number of reasons maybe responsible for this, like problem with the teachers, students, textbooks and methodology. This study however concentrates on examining materials and text books and tries to see how far the currently used textbooks are effective for training the major skills and their sub-skills of English to the students of our country. No systematic study has so far been done in our context to evaluate the English text books of class vi, vii & viii and find if there are any problems and make suggestions for overcoming those problems. Methodology for this included using a checklist, prepared through expensive literature review in materials evaluation, to evaluate the books through opinion survey of teachers and students. The data was collected by the researcher from 5 schools (public/private) of the country. The questionnaire survey was administered to 90 students and 10 teachers. The result showed that the respondents emphasized authenticity of the textbooks. Many respondents referred that the materials has less authenticity. So as a researcher my task was to give some suggestions of how to improve the text books as skill based authentic text books.