Faculty of foreign philology english teaching methodolgy department course paper

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1. DEFINITIONS OF TEXTBOOK AND CRITERIA FOR ITS SELECTION AND EVALUATION
There are various definitions for textbook Textbook a book used for instructional purposes, especially in schools and colleges‖(Harris-Hodges, 1995:124), books used by students for particular branches of study can be characterized by another important feature: their intrinsically challenging nature. Thus, in the introductory part of her innovative ESL textbook, Price-Machado (1998) acknowledges, "the development of a textbook is a long and complex process, and many individuals contribute along the way". The literature on textbook selection and/or textbook evaluation procedure is vast. Various scholars have suggested different ways to help teachers become more systematic and objective in their approach (Daoud & Celce-Murcia, 1979; Williams, 1983; Hutchinson and Waters, 1987; Sheldon, 1988; Skierso, 1991; Littlejohn, 1996;Ur, 1996). They have often offered checklists based on generalizable criteria. These sometimes detailed check-sheets use a variety of methods to assess how well a particular textbook under scrutiny measures up.We should apply widely appropriate and contextually determined criteria in our selection and evaluation of the textbooks. Harmer (1996) claims that in textbook evaluation there should be some general criteria for physical appearance, content of the text, methodology and aims of the teaching program, specific needs of the teacher and how much the textbook fulfill these needs.We are in need of presenting a criterion for scrutinizing of relevance of linguistic-materials to the socio-cultural environment In textbook evaluations that have been conducted up to now, the evaluators solicit information about the author‘s background knowledge, publishers as well as they pay close attention to the price of the books. Some of the EFL/ESL English textbooks are written in western countries with developed economies and are sold in many foreign countries with less developed economies. This makes it hard for many of the students to purchase these textbooks. Another important criterion that has been considered in this regard up to now is the accessibility and availability of the textbook so that the students can find it easily and soon. Other criteria are specific language functions, grammar and skills to fulfill the need of the learners. There should be a representation of culture and gender components as well as the relevance of content, topics and linguistic items to the students‘ background knowledge, personalities and needs (Liz, 2005 and Richards, 2001). Richards (2001) identifies four types of factors, which are essential for textbook selection and evaluation: a) program factors b) teacher factors c) learner factors d) pedagogical factors. ―The consistency of presentation of skills, spiraling of vocabulary, and reasonable progression of text difficulty‖ In Garinger (2002:1) words are the vital criteria for textbook selection. Another important criterion is the intended learners. The material should be interesting for them and satisfying their needs. As Grant (1987:10) states: The reasons why students are learning English will determine our choice of course books and methods. However, our choice of books and methods will also depend not just on the reasons why our students are learni